This video is part of our Kite & Key Shorts series—easy to understand...but hard to forget.
The past two years have been great for medicine … but it’s not all COVID-related.
In 2020, the FDA approved a mobile MRI developed by doctors at Yale.i The device lets frail patients undergo tests without leaving their hospital bed — and gets results quicker than standard MRIs.ii One other benefit: It’s 10 times cheaper than a conventional MRI machine.
Another breakthrough: Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis developed a blood test that can detect Alzheimer’s.iii The test can accurately detect the amyloid plaques that cause the disease ... without the cost and discomfort of a PET scan or spinal tap.
In 2021, we even made progress towards combatting cancer. Scientists developed a drug to “switch off” one of the most common cancer-causing genetic mutations.iv
The mutation, common in lung and colorectal cancer, was so impenetrable that scientists called it “cancer’s Death Star.” But a study found that the drug can stop tumor growth for an average of seven months.
The COVID vaccines have been important medical breakthroughs ... but, fortunately for us, they’re hardly the only ones.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
- In 2020, the FDA approved a portable MRI machine developed by doctors at Yale.
- Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis developed a blood test that can detect Alzheimer’s.
- A new drug can “switch off” one of the most common cancer-causing genes in the human body.
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