Much of medicine might be thought of, crudely, as the quest to control our cells - to influence their actions and alter their mechanisms to obtain beneficial results. Use of chemicals is the predominant methodology, but it's not the only path forward, as is illustrated here: "Many patients spontaneously recover some function in the weeks and months after suffering a stroke, as their brains reorganize to compensate for the damaged area. Scientists are searching for ways to both boost and focus this innate plasticity, thus improving neural repair. Electrical activity is one option under study: electrical current applied to the brain can modulate brain-cell activity - a crucial component of neural remodeling. ... A week after the start of the experiment, patients given the real treatment performed much better on a number of motor tests [than] those who received the fake treatment, improving by about 12 to 15 percent versus about 3 to 5 percent." This is analogous to early drug development: discovery by experiment, crude usage and small benefits. But we could envisage a line of science that made much more precise use of electromagnetic stimulation in concert with the new tools and knowledge of biotechnology. Would it be practical and competitive with other forms of medicine? Maybe, maybe not. But a great breadth of methodologies in research is the best sign that progress lies ahead.

Link: http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22921/