Biotechnology & Bioinformatics

Humans have been manipulating the DNA of the organisms around us in agriculture for thousands of years, using selective breeding to create sweeter fruit, hardier grains, cows that produce more milk, and many more valuable traits.

Although the exact origin story of the COVID-19 outbreak is still uncertain, it is highly likely that the virus began as a zoonotic disease, i.e. an infectious disease caused by a pathogen that jumped from animals to humans.

The need for universal and massive testing across the population has led to a race for technology innovations for COVID-19 diagnostics.

IDTechEx identifies top future technologies in healthcare. With demographic changes such as the aging of the population, they forecast there to be strong growth in technologies that help healthcare providers manage the growing burden on the healthcare system while maintaining high quality care.

The current outbreak of a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has hit China in the past month and spread to 25 nations. Early detection and diagnosis are essential to reduce the prevalence of infectious diseases and to prevent them from becoming epidemic or even pandemic.

Will the hamburgers of the future be made from animal cells grown in a lab instead of inside a cow? Cultured meat, also known as "cell-based" or "clean" meat, could soon be making its way to our dinner plates, completely bypassing the need for animal slaughter and overcoming some of the major environmental issues that currently plague the global agriculture industry. Even though no products have yet been released and there are major challenges with cost, regulation and scale up, the industry is growing rapidly, with investment reaching a new high in 2019.

The idea of growing meat outside an animal has been around for a long time. In 1931, Winston Churchill wrote that by the 1980s "we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium." Although his timing was off by four decades, his predictions are beginning to materialise as the world looks for new ways to feed its burgeoning population whilst overcoming the environmental problems of conventional animal agriculture.

Though activities in 3D bioprinting have been growing in leaps and bounds since 2015, the activity we have seen in 2018 has been truly remarkable for this fledgling field. Finally, governments, academic institutions and companies alike are beginning to understand the value that 3D bioprinting can bring and are working hard together to bring disruptive change through building tissues from scratch.

As the point-of-care biosensor market is expected to expand to $33 billion by 2027, investing in the right technology and business model now is paramount to success over the next decade.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Tuesday 21 November titled Medical Biosensors for Monitoring and Diagnostics.