Eric Topol's Top Advances in 2018 That Are Shaping Medicine

In the past several years, I have prepared a "top 10" list of biomedical advances. For 2018, I am instead highlighting a few areas that are fast- moving, are attracting considerable attention, and have transformative potential. Those three areas are genome editing, artificial intelligence, and the gut microbiome. There has been steady progress with illumination of biology using CRISPR (among other editing tools, such as transcription activator-like effector nucleases [TALENs] and zinc finger nucleases). One example was taking the BRCA1 gene and systematically editing its nucleotides and assessing functional changes.[1] In just one study, we could ascertain functional effects of hundreds of mutations that took more than a decade for a genomics company (Myriad Genetics; Salt Lake City, Utah) to determine via family studies.