important facts happening/happened in medicine (general)

Question 1

when was the CRISP-Cas9 gene editing tool invented?

Answer 1

2012

Question 2

what is a breakthrough in medicine related to alzheimer’s?

Answer 2

creation of the alzheimer’s blood test

Question 3

outline, step by step, how the recent advancement in alzheimer’s blood test technology has been a breakthrough in medicine and what this could potentially mean for the NHS.

Answer 3

1. usually, to diagnose alzheimers, a combination of diagonistic techniques such as a sample of cerebralspinal fluid or a PET scan (a form of brain imaging) is used.
2. This slows down diagnosis because these forms of diagnosis cannot be done at primary care clinics (i.e. health centres), causing bottlenecks into hospitals and increasing waiting times.
3. a recent advancement in alzheimer’s blood tests, called PrecivityAD2 may potentially alleviate some of this issue. by measuring levels of p-tau217 in the blood, a study funded partly by the NIH was able to detect alzheimer’s disease in participants with between 88-92% accuracy.This blood test outperformed clinical evaluations done at speciality memory clinics and in primary care settings.

The next steps for the researchers include establishing clear guidelines in the blood tests’ use in clinical practice.