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2022 was a year of incredible advances in science, medicine and space exploration that set the stage for more breakthroughs in 2023.
From NASA’s Artemis program, which brought our attention back to the exploration of the Moon, to new ways to develop vaccines quickly and effectively.
The year 2023 also promises to continue building on these advances.
These are five anticipated advances.
1. The new generation of vaccines
Thanks to the success of mRNA vaccines against the covid-19 pandemic, all types of vaccines are being developed with this technology against a range of diseases.
Targeted by vaccines are malaria, tuberculosis, genital herpes, HIV, cystic fibrosis, cancer, and various types of lung disease, among others.
German pharmaceutical BioNTech plans to start the first human trials of its mRNA malaria vaccine and the tuberculosis in a few weeks, while Moderna, from the USA, will do it against the viruses that cause genital herpes and shingles.
One of the most promising mRNA vaccines is against cancer. They are designed to recognize cancer cells and destroy them.
Other pharmaceutical companies are studying the possibility of applying the covid vaccine quickly and effectively with a simple nasal spray. They worked on animals, and tests on humans are expected soon.
2. Advanced spatial observation
image source, J.Orrell/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
The Vera C. Rubin telescope camera has thousands of times the capacity of a conventional camera.
The world has been stunned by new images of the universe taken by the mighty James Webb Space Telescope, the instrument launched by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency that will continue to provide discoveries for decades.
But there will be deeper exploration tools.
ESA plans to launch the Euclid telescope in 2023, which will go into solar orbit for six years to create a 3D map of the universe. For its part, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is developing a mission that will detect X-ray radiation from distant stars and galaxies.
And in Chile, the Vera C. Rubin telescope, which has a camera with a detection power of over 3 billion pixels, is ready to take pictures next July. The telescope has the ability to record the entire southern sky in just three days.
3. Missions to the Moon
image source, NASA
NASA’s Lunar Flashlight program will literally illuminate craters and hidden corners of the Moon to analyze the composition of ice deposits.
NASA’s Artemis program, which sent the Orion capsule to the moon without people on board and successfully returned it to Earth this December, is just the beginning of more visits to our satellite.
The UAE has already launched its Rashid lunar rover on December 11, which is scheduled to survey the lunar surface. NASA also sent an orbital satellite on that date that will explore the composition of water ice deposits in craters and permanently obscured regions of the Moon.
There is also the HAKUTO-R form from Japan, which will try to a alunation sweet in April, as well as India’s Chandrayaan-3, which aims to land near the moon’s south pole in mid-2023.
One of the most anticipated missions will be the first civilian flight to the moon. Eleven people will take a six-day trip aboard Elon Musk’s SpaceX company’s Starship rocket.
4. CRISPR genetic engineering
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2023 could be the year in which CRISPR-Cas9 therapy is approved, a gene editing technique that allows you to alter a DNA strand, cutting a part of it and reconstituting it to form a new sequence.
Treatment has given way promising results in clinical trials against two genetic blood disordersincluding sickle cell anemia.
Pharmaceutical companies Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics are developing the treatment known as exa-cel, which will be submitted for approval by the US Food and Drug Administration next March.
The go-ahead will make exa-cel available to patients with sickle cell disease, a severe structural deformity of red blood cells that impairs blood circulation.
5. Alzheimer’s medications
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Alzheimer’s research will enter a drug development phase.
In November of this year, the achievement of a drug capable of slowing the destruction of the brain affected by Alzheimer’s was announced, which was hailed as a momentous advance.
In early January 2023, the US regulator will announce whether it can be made available to treat patients, although the drug is only effective in the early stages of the disease.
That’s the drug lecanemab, which attacks the sticky plaque — called beta-amyloid — that builds up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.
In a research field full of failures, this medicine is considered “the initiator of Alzheimer’s therapies”, according to experts.
Another drug, called blarcamesine, which activates a protein that improves neuron stability, will continue its clinical trials. It is developed by the pharmaceutical company Anavex Life Sciences.
