Darcy Jimenez

Searching for the key to immortality may sound like the preoccupation of a superhero-movie villain, but a growing number of biotech companies – and billionaires with cash to spare – are investing in research that could prevent and reverse the ageing process in humans.

Research into the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs was pioneered by psychiatrists way back in the 1950s, but the emergence of advanced technologies in pharma appears to have breathed new life into the field.

From art to real estate, it seems NFTs are infiltrating almost every market – and healthcare could be next. In a commentary published in Science earlier this month, a cross-sectional team of scholars led by bioethicists at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) proposed that the emerging technology could allow patients to control and profit from their medical data.

The discovery and design of novel therapies is an increasingly challenging endeavour in the 21st century; though technology has progressed in leaps and bounds, identifying previously unknown molecules and drugs has become trickier, and every avenue that could accelerate or enhance the process must be explored. Approaches that were once unthinkable, such as artificial intelligence, have become commonplace in drug discovery – and now, quantum computing is emerging as pharma’s next frontier.

As the world continues to grapple with the Covid-19 pandemic, another health crisis is looming: antibiotic resistance. Bacterial resistance is something that occurs naturally, but widespread antibiotic misuse has propelled antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to major global health threat status; at least 700,000 people are killed by drug-resistant superbugs every year – and by 2050, this number could reach 10 million.

Advanced technology is now commonplace in pharma, where innovations like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning accelerate and improve the accuracy of drug discovery and development efforts. Add to the list the supercomputer – a powerful class of computer, vastly superior to general-purpose computers in terms of speed and performance, that are commonly used for data-intensive scientific purposes.