New Delhi: Artificial intelligence, quantum computing and gene editing have opened up new frontiers in science. Tech giants are racing to decode the structure of protein with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and researchers are trying to hack diseases with gene editing tools. But navigating climate change still poses a challenge.
Here are the key science trends to look out for in 2024.
Advances in artificial intelligence
In the ever-evolving landscape of AI, 2023 has marked a significant turning point with generative AI, with ChatGPT becoming a part of people’s lives.
However, beyond its impact on everyday tasks — such as writing emails or assignments — AI is poised to witness substantial strides in the scientific and research domains.
Meta and Google, titans in the technological realm, are currently engaged in a competition surrounding protein structure prediction via AI.
Meta’s ESMFold and Google’s AlphaFold, both AI programmes, predict protein structures based on genetic information. So far, both have helped unlock structures of hundreds of previously unknown proteins — a crucial step in drug discovery.
Meanwhile, research employing AI models to interpret X-rays and CT scans is in full swing, which has promising implications in helping medical practitioners make disease diagnoses — such as accurately identifying tumours from X-rays.
But alongside such advances, AI-generated deep fakes are also likely to become a top cyber threat, especially with both the US and India heading for elections in 2024.
As these learning models advance, the imperative to safeguard against the proliferation of deepfake technologies becomes increasingly pronounced.
Navigating the climate crisis
With prevailing El Niño conditions and ongoing human-induced climate change, 2024 is likely to be among the warmest years on global record.
Reports suggest that the earth may breach the critical global warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius this year. This also means that 2024 will continue to witness extreme climate disasters.
While the international community during 2023 Conference of the Parties (or COP 28) underscored the need to “phase down” fossil fuels, there is more emphasis on achieving net-zero emissions. These would mean that countries whose economies are still largely dependent on fossil fuels will focus on development of technologies designed to “capture” carbon. A push to such technologies is likely in 2024.
Escalating temperatures will also give rise to the prevalence of infectious diseases, such as malaria, dengue, and chikungunya, in regions which were so far not seen as hotspots of these diseases.
mRNA’s pinnacle achievement
The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new era for mRNA (messenger RNA) vaccines. mRNA is a molecule that carries genetic instructions from the DNA to the protein synthesis machinery in cells.
But beyond booster shots for the ever-evolving coronavirus, mRNA technology is poised to make significant strides in treating other diseases, including cancer.
The approach opens avenues for personalised cancer therapies and as well as for treating autoimmune diseases that so far have no cure.
CRISPR-CAS9: genomic frontiers
Following more than a decade of laboratory and clinical trials, the UK emerged as the first country to authorise a gene therapy for sickle cell disease, subsequently followed by the US.
CRISPR-CAS9 (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is a gene-editing tool which can help rectify genetic anomalies causing diseases that currently lack alternative cures.
While CRISPR-CAS9 has demonstrated efficacy in laboratory settings, its application has remained limited. This is largely because while genes in single cell organisms like bacteria and other microbes can be easily edited, there was a major challenge of delivering edited genomes to the cells in the entire human body.
Yet, promising developments hint at the tool’s potential applicability in treating ailments such as Alzheimer’s disease.
With the successful deployment of CRISPR-CAS9 for sickle cell disease, addressing issues of making the therapy affordable is now likely to be the focus.
Quantum computing
The race to achieve the world’s first viable quantum computer is gaining momentum, with India intensifying its commitment to this transformative technology.
Quantum technology harnesses the principles of quantum mechanics, a theory in physics that deals with the behaviour of matter and energy at the most fundamental level — at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles.
Six nations — US, Finland, Austria, France, China, and Canada — are actively engaged in advancing quantum technology.
Tech giant IBM recently announced the development of a new quantum computing chip and machine, which are likely to surpass the speeds of currently operational supercomputers.
Beyond the paradigm of speed, the implications of quantum computing extend to the strategic frontier of information technology. Quantum computing is likely to become a key tool in cybersecurity defences, capitalising on the intrinsic security derived from fundamental quantum physics.
The race toward quantum supremacy is witnessing governments worldwide collaborating closely with research laboratories, underscoring the dawn of a new era in quantum computing.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)