William Keefer asked S.E. Sasaki:

What do you think are the strangest medical advances we will see in the next 100 years?

S.E. Sasaki Hi William! Thanks so much for asking me this question. I have thought long and hard on this one. I have to say that my vision of what will happen in the next 100 years is pretty bleak and it is based largely on what I see happening already in the world. There will continue to be a greater division between the 'haves' and 'have-nots', the rich and the poor. As our world population reaches over 8 billion, food and clean water will become more and more scarce, as will fertile land. With the seas being overfished and bees dying, food production will become less. Starvation will lead to illness (pestilence) and war. Medicine may advance in the rich countries - extending life and perhaps eliminating most cancers - but will be reserved for the rich. The poor will be locked out or walled off. Thus, there will be a marked dichotomy in medical treatment. The rich will thrive and live longer. The poor, which will be the vast majority, will have no affordable health care and will die off at a younger and younger age. This will likely be encouraged. With antibiotic resistance growing, there will be fewer medications that can treat the resistant organisms and the world may face epidemics of superbugs. As oil runs out, the production of so much of what we take for granted today will disappear, such as all of our plastics and many of our synthetic chemicals. Robotics will continue to take jobs from humans, including in the medical field. As the population climbs towards 10 billion, I fear there may be the manufacture of diseases to cull the population, unless war does so first. Much of the medical advances will probably be related to war, whether it be in the field of biological warfare or in the treatment of those harmful biological agents. My own science fiction book, Welcome to the Madhouse, predicts the use of gene modification of humans to make them better adapted to harsher environments and also predicts the increased use of androids and robots in the provision of medical care as well as the use of nanobots. Unless the world's population can come under some strict reproductive controls, I fear the worst is approaching. Sorry for the doom and gloom picture but I can't see how things can be averted.

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