It’s staggering when you think about it, but the average human lifespan has more than doubled since 1900, in no small part due to advances in science and technology. Unfortunately, this in turn has created a new set of problems; with longer lives come complex new diseases that we just don’t know how to deal with—yet.
Though hardly the panacea that some futurists might make it out to be, technology has the potential to solve some of the problems it has inadvertently ‘created.’ This issue, we investigate whether technology could assist doctors, prevent diseases before they develop or even help Asia leapfrog the medical standards of the West.
Also not to be missed are our exclusive interviews with the people at the forefront of making technology work for patients: Professor Tai E Shyong, an expert in personalized medicine at Singapore’s National University Hospital, and Wang Jun, former CEO of China’s leading genomics institute BGI, who has since started a new artificial intelligence initiative, iCarbonX.
But for all the exciting progress being made in data-driven medicine, new problems rise up to take their place. We look at just one of them: the explosion of clinical imaging data and the issue of how to store it.
Enjoy!
Rebecca Tan
Managing Editor
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