In order to fight all these new diseases and “save the world”, Bill Gates suggests two possible (and quite controversial) solutions: Artificial Intelligence and gene editing.

According to an article published on Yahoo Finance by journalist Alan Boyle, the tycoon “has been working to improve the state of global health through his nonprofit foundation for 20 years, and today [14 February] he told the nation’s premier scientific gathering that advances in artificial intelligence and gene editing could accelerate those improvements exponentially in the years ahead”.

The article explains that Mr Gates believes in a new generation of health care solutions based on AI and manipulation of genes. “We have an opportunity with the advance of tools like artificial intelligence and gene-based editing technologies to build this new generation of health solutions so that they are available to everyone on the planet. And I’m very excited about this”, he said.

For example, the Gates Foundation is working on several projects that apply Artificial Intelligence to common health issues. “One project is using AI to look for links between maternal nutrition and infant birth weight. Other projects focus on measuring the balance of different types of microbes in the human gut, using high-throughput gene sequencing. The gut microbiome is thought to play a role in health issues ranging from digestive problems to autoimmune diseases to neurological conditions”, the report informs.

“The Gates Foundation has backed a number of organ-on-a-chip projects over the years, including one experiment that’s using lymph-node organoids to evaluate the safety and efficacy of vaccines. At least one organ-on-a-chip venture based in the Seattle area, Nortis, has gone commercial thanks in part to Gates’ support”, it states. “High-tech health research tends to come at a high cost, but Gates argues that these technologies will eventually drive down the cost of biomedical innovation”, it continues.

Draw your own conclusions…

For more information: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-bill-gates-thinks-gene-022040288.html