2. Increasingly personalized medicine

Biotechnology has played an essential role in many areas of development for many years now. One example can be seen in antibiotics, explained José Luis García, research professor at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). “They have saved millions of lives and are a more important revolution than mobile phones,” he highlighted.

Now, nearly 100 years after Fleming discovered penicillin, personalized medicine is starting to become a reality thanks to the reduced cost of DNA analysis. The goal is to give patients the precise treatment needed at just the right time.

“Many drugs on the market aren’t effective, which has led to a silent revolution, moving from chemical drugs to biologicals,” announced Professor Mathias Uhlen of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm (Sweden).

“Proteins are the building blocks of life. And more than 98% of drugs are based on them. That’s why we launched a project in 2003 to map all human proteins. Two months ago, we published a Pathology Atlas of the most important types of cancer, with data from 10,000 patients,” he explained.

This publication will be followed by others over the coming years focusing on the location of proteins in human tissue, cells and mouse brains. They are also working to determine which proteins have alternative expression in diseases (with cancer as the main goal) and which metabolic pathways are active in different tissues and diseases. Similar initiatives are currently being promoted by companies like Microsoft, Facebook and Google.