I believe in miracles

We are living, it seems to me, in an age of miracles and wonder. Hardly a day has gone by over the last month without news of some spectacular medical or pharmaceutical advance, such as the experimental treatment in the UK that is believed to be regenerating the brains of patients with Parkinson's disease by installing a device in the thorax that pumps a concentrated drug direct to the most damaged part of the brain.

Then there is the study in the US that suggests that stem cell transplants could stabilise some severe cases of multiple sclerosis. The treatment uses magnetic technology to separate out stem cells from the patients' blood, kills the cells that are working against the immune system and then returns the healthy cells to the body.

Even more amazing is the ground-breaking use of gene therapy to enable an 18-month-old boy suffering from severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) to live a normal life by adding in a correctly functioning version of the single mutated gene that causes the condition.

With the completion of the mapping of the human genome expected next year, the layman might be forgiven for thinking that the cure for all human ills is just around the corner – but of course that is far from reality. Some genes that cause inherited diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, have been known for more than a decade, but no cure is likely in the foreseeable future. And there is still no cure or even an effective treatment for that most mundane of afflictions – the common cold.

According to some of the world's leading scientists attending the Seventh International Human Genome Meeting in China last month, research into human genetics is being limited by a lack of knowledge in other areas of science, and our poor understanding of even basic human anatomy means that the human genome project is not yet delivering cures for genetic diseases that had been hoped for.

Of course, the field of pharmacogenomics will continue to progress, and as our understanding of diseases like AIDS, malaria and hepatitis increases – for example, knowing exactly what they do to cells at a molecular level – new practical applications of the genomic map will be developed, the scientists predict.

For my part, I will continue to be amazed when I hear developments such as a genetically engineered cold virus being used to destroy liver tumours and the use of gene therapy to make normal bone marrow cells resistant to anti-tumour drugs.

I am a firm believer in miracles.