I get to try the Guardian GT big-arm robot, which is like a real-life Power Loader from Aliens. It’s controlled by a human and has incredible precision, but it’s also incredibly strong. Made by Sarcos Robotics, the GT can be used in situations that are too dangerous for humans to enter, like decommissioning nuclear power plants.
Ira Pastor, ideaXme longevity and aging ambassador and Founder of Bioquark, interviews Robin Farmanfarmaian, medical futurist, bestselling author, professional speaker, and CEO and Co-Founder of ArO.
Ira Pastor Comments:
In 2019, we are spending over $7 trillion around the globe on healthcare. $1 trillion goes to pharmaceutical products, $350 billion to medical devices, $200 billion new life sciences R&D, and on and on.
We tend to forget how much consolidation has occurred in these different healthcare segments. The world’s 10 largest pharmaceutical companies control 60% of that trillion dollar market. The top 8 insurance companies in the U.S. control over 50% of all individual patient coverage. In 43 countries, which account for 3/4 the world’s population, patients only have appointment times between 5- 10 minutes with their primary care physicians. As patients, we know what it’s like to feel somewhat separated and insignificant in this system.
We usually talk on this show about the future, and the amazing technologies and products coming down the pipeline for more dramatic things, such as complex regeneration, disease reversion, radical life extension and so forth, but it’s equally important to speak on how we as individuals and patients can put ourselves back in the driver’s seat and not just be an afterthought in the equation.
Today’s guest, who knows a lot about this topic, is Ms. Robin Farmanfarmaian. Robin is a medical futurist, entrepreneur, bestselling author, and professional speaker. She focuses on the future of integrated medicine, the changing role of patients in healthcare decision-making, and how technology will change the way we experience and interact with medical facilities and physicians.
In experiments in mice, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they have developed a way to successfully transplant certain protective brain cells without the need for lifelong anti-rejection drugs.
A report on the research, published Sept. 16 in the journal Brain, details the new approach, which selectively circumvents the immune response against foreign cells, allowing transplanted cells to survive, thrive and protect brain tissue long after stopping immune-suppressing drugs.
The ability to successfully transplant healthy cells into the brain without the need for conventional anti-rejection drugs could advance the search for therapies that help children born with a rare but devastating class of genetic diseases in which myelin, the protective coating around neurons that helps them send messages, does not form normally. Approximately 1 of every 100,000 children born in the U.S. will have one of these diseases, such as Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease. This disorder is characterized by infants missing developmental milestones such as sitting and walking, having involuntary muscle spasms, and potentially experiencing partial paralysis of the arms and legs, all caused by a genetic mutation in the genes that form myelin.
