How would you see healing technology when repairing damage or disease?

[DAgent]

So over the years I've seen a few examples of technology that can heal various wounds or treat illnesses, Star Trek has dermal regenerators capable of repairing damage to skin without so much as a scar being left, sometimes even removing old scars, Star Wars has the bacta tanks, in the world of Judge Dredd they seem to be able to grow replacement body parts now, and Star Gate has the G'ould hand device (not to be confused with the other hand device they use to torture people with) and Sarcophagus which is so good it can raise the recently dead. But long term use had side effects. Even the Transformers have something rather similar to that too.

Can anyone add to this list at all, because I'm sure there's going to loads of other examples.

Now, here's what I'm wondering, just how should a device that can repair the worst kind of damages to a human/alien/animal body actually work? Would it look at the subjects DNA to get an idea of what the body should look like from the "blueprint"? Or would it work on some other basis?

Because here's where I think looking at the DNA might let things go wrong. Let's say someone's lost a leg, or their kidney has been damaged from a gunshot. That should be simple enough for this kind of technology to repair or replace. But what if someone has a genetic related health issue, that they've had surgery to correct?

Say someone has one bad gene that's caused a load of health problems, that as per their cultures level of tech could only be corrected to some degree by surgery. Or even something as relatively harmless health wise as mismatched eye colours but which could be corrected by their own tech. but they come across some advanced alien technology that can heal any and all wounds. Would that surgery end up being undone and they'd be back to square one? Would it try to get rid of cosmetic surgeries like breast implants? What would happen to tattoos? Or artificial hips?

 

[farntfar]

Dune had the Axolotl tank, I think. Not sure of the name. It was a long time ago I read it, but presumably produced by the Teilaxu.
They could bring back the dead, (as gholas?) but without their memories, until they shocked Duncan into his previous memories.

Star trek (Voyager) had the Borg nanoprobes, which could be programmed to fix genetic problems too. The EMH clearly had a copy of the programming manual.

Doctor Who had 2 examples (not counting regeneration.)
The ones in the one where we first meet Jack. Called nanobots, I think, they could clearly get it wrong, and went round giving everyone built in gas masks.
And the ones that gave Ashiva(?) immortality in the viking episode.(and follow-ons.) Ooh. Plus BadWolf/Rose when she swallowed the time-vortex.

So. In terms of fixing pre-existing conditions, the main examples are the EMH programming them, and the Whovian nanobots eventually realising that the gas mask wasn't in the basic design. So learning by precedent.

 

[DAgent]

Dune had the Axolotl tank, I think. Not sure of the name. It was a long time ago I read it, but presumably produced by the Teilaxu.
They could bring back the dead, (as gholas?) but without their memories, until they shocked Duncan into his previous memories.

Star trek (Voyager) had the Borg nanoprobes, which could be programmed to fix genetic problems too. The EMH clearly had a copy of the programming manual.

Doctor Who had 2 examples (not counting regeneration.)
The ones in the one where we first meet Jack. Called nanobots, I think, they could clearly get it wrong, and went round giving everyone built in gas masks.
And the ones that gave Ashiva(?) immortality in the viking episode.(and follow-ons.) Ooh. Plus BadWolf/Rose when she swallowed the time-vortex.

So. In terms of fixing pre-existing conditions, the main examples are the EMH programming them, and the Whovian nanobots eventually realising that the gas mask wasn't in the basic design. So learning by precedent.

I'd completely forgotten about the Borg nanoprobes and the Dr Who nanobots, but I think in the latter case they didn't know what a human was and only went by physical appearance, hence the nightmare of that stories "bad guy" with the gas mask growing out of Victor Meldrews head.... (I don't believe it!)

Definitely a case of the tech not knowing what it was working with.

 

[Bramandin]

I'd completely forgotten about the Borg nanoprobes and the Dr Who nanobots, but I think in the latter case they didn't know what a human was and only went by physical appearance, hence the nightmare of that stories "bad guy" with the gas mask growing out of Victor Meldrews head.... (I don't believe it!)

Definitely a case of the tech not knowing what it was working with.

Schlock Mercenary had neat medical technology that developed as the series went on.

 

[DAgent]

Schlock Mercenary had neat medical technology that developed as the series went on.

I've not read that webcomic in years, I didn't stop for any real reason, just that my life got rather hectic and I had to manage my time a bit more strictly and when things went back to normal, I never got around to catching up. But their med tech was exceptionally good.

 

[Brian G Turner]

In my Chronicles writing I try to explain how magnetic fields could be used to heal people in the future. It's a very serious attempt at speculative science. Interestingly, I read an article recently that suggested this is a new area of research being explored.

 

[farntfar]

In the real future starship doctors may say "Pass me the BGT field generator" instead of the "dermal regenerator" that we are lead to expect.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Because here's where I think looking at the DNA might let things go wrong. Let's say someone's lost a leg, or their kidney has been damaged from a gunshot. That should be simple enough for this kind of technology to repair or replace. But what if someone has a genetic related health issue, that they've had surgery to correct?

David Weber has a story, Apocalypse Troll where a mutated disease becomes a symbyote. It keeps people young and healthy but preserves any genetic defects. The example given was bad wisdom teeth. They would grow back if extracted.

The trouble was the mutant disease only worked on 1% of humans. It would kill the rest. Aliens can't do anything right.

 

[DAgent]

In my Chronicles writing I try to explain how magnetic fields could be used to heal people in the future. It's a very serious attempt at speculative science. Interestingly, I read an article recently that suggested this is a new area of research being explored.

I remember seeing something on facebook about a (I think) Japanese scientist was trying to sell "immortality" bracelets that made use of magnets. Pretty much every response was poo pooing the idea.

 

[DAgent]

In the real future starship doctors may say "Pass me the BGT field generator" instead of the "dermal regenerator" that we are lead to expect.

I did a quick google on "BGT field generator" all I got was stuff about "Britain's Got Talent" !

 

[CupofJoe]

The issue with fixes at a genetic level, is who gets to decide what genetic differences need fixing?
[Apologies if I am using these terms inaccurately] I believe there is a treatment that can "fix" some types of Dwarfism. But does it need fixing?
Does someone who is deaf need to have their hearing "repaired"?
Who gets to make that choice for a child? or a potential child?
At the reconstruction side of things, I can see that in the not-too-distant future that some sort of 3D printer that can print DNA matched material to reconstruct body parts will be available. Build an artificial limb down to the cell level and then knit it in to the living body...

 

[Wayne Mack]

I've always wondered about the near instantaneous healing medical equipment.

Nano-robots would likely be limited to being able to suturing cuts and evacuating fluids in lungs and body cavities.

Replacement body parts will likely be a combination non-organic devices and possibly controlled replication of organs from a person's own tissues. Mechanical devices would be available immediately after injury and avoid rejection issues associated with organic replacement. Organic replacements from a person's own cell tissue would avoid rejection issues from other sources but would probably take one to two years to grow and would would require some medical advances to grow specific organs (and avoid the moral dilemma of growing complete clones for medical use).

Brain injury and diseases like Alzheimer's will continue to be a problem. Even if tissue can be replaced, the understanding of how thoughts, memories, emotions, etc. will likely remain a mystery.

 

[Bramandin]

The entire post is explaining the healing-tech in my fanfiction, so skip if you're not interested.

I had bone-menders and skin-menders. I think the skin-menders were just "they exist" and I didn't explain them at all. For the bone-mender, he does her leg but the repair isn't enough that she can walk on it without pain. Her wing is also broken but he's afraid of doing more damage and it's splinted the old-fashioned way. I think if I had to explain it, the device takes nearby tissue and creates enough of a scaffolding to half-repair the injury but the body had to finish it.

Since a lot of the race was hell-scarred and the surgery to reduce that scarring still left telltale marks, I think that the skin-mender would leave scars that could later be surgically reduced. Pretty much they're just focused on getting wounds closed enough to ward off infection.

There was also a character that needed his heart replaced, so they cloned a new organ.

They also had a child that they grew in a tank. But because their DNA wasn't fully compatible, they had to try several times to get a viable one. Parts of the child's body were chimeric, completely coming from one father or the other instead of hybrid DNA. Tank-children are supposed to be flushed if they have defects were naturally-born children are allowed to live if they can, but they broke the law and the child needed leg-braces and corrective surgery.

I didn't realize that I completely ignored DNA when setting it up, and I don't think that they can change DNA after the person starts forming. That's actually a good thing because I decided that trans characters could exist, but since they can physically reconstruct the body and change which hormones they naturally produce, trying to do a DNA-based treatment without checking the chromosomes first could mean they need surgery after the healing.

 

[farntfar]

I did a quick google on "BGT field generator" all I got was stuff about "Britain's Got Talent" !

I was suggesting that the real life version of the Star Trek device could be named after our own Brian G Turner for making the suggestion earlier in this thread.

 

[Swank]

Star Trek style technology is always about some sort of "field" that "makes things happen". It doesn't begin to look like speculative science, but more "hand wavium". Such technology seems to work on this idea that natural cellular repair could be insanely sped up and improved with the right stimulation - but that doesn't really work unless you're manipulating time itself. Even with magnets.

Nanomachines could work on a scale similar to the organelles in a cell, so able to build new cells directly using processes that mimic biological repair but at a greater pace. Similar technology could keep something like Alzheimer's or cancer at bay the brute force expedient of acting like a more effective immune system that destroys plaques and cancer cells while restoring damaged tissue. That doesn't mean Alzheimer's memory losses could be restored, but that the person would regain normal ability to make and access memories.

If not nanobots, a large machine able to rapidly place molecules in layers like a 3D printer is another possibility, like in The Fifth Element. While nanobots would work by computing the problem on a local scale in reference to DNA and some general anatomy programming, a printer would have to have the processing power to see where everything was going to go and treat the locations of trillions of atoms as known quantities. This is a similar problem to building a machine that mimics a human brain in complexity, which might be impossible.

If you have some sort of inter-dimensional transport system, you could have a machine that swaps damaged tissue in this universe for good tissue in some other plane. Fun implications abound.

On a more basic level, cloned and stored tissue could be rapidly swapped using even pretty recognizable surgical techniques.

If time isn't a factor, stabilize the patient and introduce the same sort of natural processes that allow some animals to regrow major parts of their bodies. It might take a year to get your arm back, but that's better than some alternatives. Consider that deer grow antlers at a rate of 1/2" a day.

Another process might be to insert artificial tissue that externally functions like the damaged organic tissue, but on a fine scale operates by other principles. Similar to replacing a vein with a piece of plastic tubing, imagine muscle fibers that work more like solenoids but blend in with real muscle. Or have a type of engineered or alien tissue that is able to behave similarly without the constraints of Earth biology.

 

[DAgent]

I was suggesting that the real life version of the Star Trek device could be named after our own Brian G Turner for making the suggestion earlier in this thread.

Ah, I'm with you now.