From the first human face transplant to a device that helps a paralyzed patient speak, medical breakthroughs continue to transform health care and scientific research [1]. These advancements are helping doctors improve diagnostics and treatment methods, thereby improving patients’ lives. However, some of these developments also show how quickly the field of medicine can change.
For example, in the 1860s, infection rates were soaring after surgery. But after Louis Pasteur developed germ theory, and Joseph Lister applied it to surgical infections, the rate plummeted. Ultimately, this enabled surgeons to perform more complex operations, such as kidney and pancreas transplants.
Other significant advances include the development of anesthetics in 1844, which made it possible for people to undergo invasive surgeries and save millions of lives. And in the 1980s, doctors at Brigham and Women’s performed the nation’s first triple-organ transplant, removing two lungs and a heart from one donor and implanting them in three patients.
Other milestones include HMS professor of genetics Jack Szostak’s co-discovery of telomeres, regions of repetitive DNA that protect the ends of chromosomes and shorten each time a cell divides. This discovery, along with his work on telomerase, opened up new avenues of study in cancer, aging and stem cells. It helped earn Szostak the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Other notable discoveries include a vaccine for the flu, which saved many lives; insulin, which extends the life of diabetics and cuts costs to health systems; and a gene-editing technique known as CRISPR-Cas9, which is opening up new treatment options for genetic diseases.