Major discoveries in health and biology in 2022

The year 2022 was a pretty tough year, especially for health care.

The COVID pandemic continued to cause spikes in morbidity and mortality. Several neglected viruses, such as smallpox, influenza, and RSV, suddenly made themselves known. And the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the nearly 50-year right to reproductive freedom established by Roe v. Wade.

But there was more than just bad news in 2022! In fact, biology and medicine were peppered with a number of exciting advances in fields as diverse as epidemiology, human evolution, and artificial intelligence.

Here are some of the discoveries that have given us hope for the future of humanity and human health.

WE HAVE RECEIVED UPDATED VERSIONS OF COVID VACCINES

The development of COVID vaccines within a year of the discovery of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease, is certainly one of the greatest medical advances in recent times. The two most effective vaccines developed using mRNA technology have been shown to largely protect against severe illness and death from SARS-CoV-2. But the virus continued to evolve, and new variants of the virus began to find ways to bypass human immune defenses. Fortunately, vaccine manufacturers have developed new vaccines that target both the Omicron variant and the original strain.

DISCOVERIES IN HUMAN EVOLUTION WIN NOBEL PRIZE

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Svante Päebo for his discoveries about the genetic relationships between our hominin ancestors. Pääbo, a Swedish geneticist and director of the Evolutionary Genetics Department at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, pioneered the development of methods to reconstruct ancient DNA. He and his colleagues sequenced the Neanderthal genome and discovered a new hominin species, Denisovans. The research led to the surprising discovery that early humans had cross-bred with these now-extinct species. From these primitive interbreedings, we gained traits that persist in some humans today, including the ability to survive at high altitudes and vulnerability to infections such as COVID.

SCIENTISTS HAVE REVIVED THE ORGANS OF DEAD PIGS

A team of scientists from Yale University has developed a perfusion system that restores the viability of pigs' organs after the animals die. The system, known as OrganEx, pumped a mixture of blood and nutrient-rich fluid through each animal's circulatory system.

The technology has the potential to preserve human organs longer for transplantation.

RESEARCHERS FIND SECRETS IN OUR FECES

It turns out that human waste contains a wealth of useful information for infectious disease specialists.

Wastewater tracking systems have allowed researchers to detect cases of COVID and new variants of SARS-CoV-2 in some regions before they caused a spike in cases. Through wastewater monitoring, scientists also found the polio-causing virus in sewage systems in New York State and the United Kingdom. Scientists say this type of monitoring can also detect spikes in opioid use or in levels of antibiotic-resistant microbes.

INDOOR AIR QUALITY MATTERS

Before the COVID pandemic, most of us probably didn't give much thought to the kind of indoor air we breathe. However, over the past few years, it has become clear that SARS-CoV-2 is often spread by airborne droplets, which can build up in enclosed spaces and cause illness. Fortunately, we can reduce this risk by ventilating buildings and filtering the air we breathe. In addition, clean indoor air has other benefits: it reduces the risk of respiratory disease in general and may even help us think more clearly.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SOLVED ONE OF THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS IN BIOLOGY

One of the most difficult problems for biologists is predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins from their amino acid sequence. But earlier this year, an artificial intelligence program created by Google-owned DeepMind called AlphaFold made it possible to determine the three-dimensional structure of about 200 million proteins. These structures are already allowing scientists to unlock the mysteries of biology, and they could lead to new pharmaceuticals and more resistant crops.

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