• Question: What kind of disease do you think will exist in the future?

    Asked by Ines Pérez to Eoin, Ester, Ildiko, Natasha, Paul, Tom on 8 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Natasha Myhill

      Natasha Myhill answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      Another good question. As we continue to make better medicines, as a society we are living longer and that means that there are more age-related diseases. These are difficult to prevent because we cant live forever and at some point our bodies just cant keep working properly anymore. So I think there could be an increase in age-related diseases in the future. Hopefully the amazing research being done into age-related diseases like Alzheimers and Parkinsons will make life easier though.

    • Photo: Ester Gil Vazquez

      Ester Gil Vazquez answered on 9 Nov 2017:

      I would agree with Natasha: neurodegenerative diseases, which come with age, will be even a bigger enemy in the future. However, I would add to the list infectious diseases. Currently it is very easy to kill bacteria with antibiotics. However, some bacteria are finding ways to escape them: they are becoming resistant! We are trying to develop new antibiotics but that is difficult because…basically we have tried almost everything already. I think we will need lots of effort in this area to continue being as good as we are at the moment at killing bacteria. In addition, some pretty bad parasites will be spreading to other parts of the world because of global warming (they like it warm and we are making it easier for them to come to the north). This will be challenging but hopefully we’ll manage!

    • Photo: Paul McKeegan

      Paul McKeegan answered on 9 Nov 2017:

      My thoughts were similar! The main diseases that affect us now are connected to our energy-rich Western diet and our long lifespans. So maybe there are new diseases that will surface as we are able to live even longer. I hope not, though, the ones we have are bad enough and affect us all in some way.

    • Photo: Eoin McKinney

      Eoin McKinney answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      we’ll never get rid of infections – they continually evolve and change. New ones will always emerge, even as we manage to get rid of some others. The incredible thing about our immune system is that it has evolved to deal with not just all teh infections that exist now, but any infection that might ever possibly exist! It manages this by producing a ridiculous amount of different proteins called receptors on the surface of immune cells. They are capable of producing more than 10 billion billion different receptors which is enough variety to cover any possible pattern in a bugs proteins.

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