Human Tech Tree

Life

Medicine

72 points from the earliest roots to the research frontier: 44 researched, 11 current research, 9 unsolved and 8 that become possible once they are solved. State of knowledge: October 2026.

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Prehistorybefore 3000 BC

  • Healing plants and trepanation~48,000 BC–5000 BCResearchedPrehistoric people used medicinal plants and even opened skulls, and some patients survived.

Antiquity3000 BC – 500 AD

  • Ancient clinical medicine~400 BCResearchedEgyptian, Greek and Roman doctors wrote down observation, diagnosis and surgery as a craft.

Middle Ages & Renaissance500 – 1700

  • Hospitals~805ResearchedDedicated hospitals with wards, staff and teaching appeared in Baghdad around 805 and spread across the Islamic world as bimaristans.
  • Quarantine1377ResearchedIn 1377 Ragusa (Dubrovnik) ordered arrivals from plague areas to wait thirty days outside the city, the first known quarantine law.
  • Anatomy and blood circulation1543ResearchedDissection-based anatomy corrected Galen, and Harvey showed that blood circulates around the body.

Industrial Age1700 – 1900

  • Smallpox inoculation1721ResearchedGiving healthy people a mild dose of smallpox matter cut deaths; long practised in Asia and Africa, it reached Britain and Boston in 1721.
  • Vaccination1796ResearchedEdward Jenner showed that cowpox protects against smallpox, founding the idea of immunisation.
  • Stethoscope1816ResearchedRené Laennec rolled paper into a tube in 1816 to hear the heart and lungs, founding diagnosis by listening to the body's sounds.
  • Anesthesia1846ResearchedEther and chloroform let surgeons operate on patients who feel no pain.
  • Epidemiology1854ResearchedCounting who falls ill, where and why: John Snow's 1854 cholera map founded the science of how diseases spread in populations.
  • Sewers and clean water1858ResearchedAfter London's 'Great Stink' of 1858, Bazalgette's sewers and later treated water ended cholera epidemics in cities.
  • Germ theory1861ResearchedMicrobes, not bad air or imbalance, cause infectious diseases.
  • Hygiene and antisepsis1867ResearchedWashing hands and cleaning wounds and instruments cut deadly hospital infections dramatically.
  • Antibodies and serum therapy1890ResearchedIn 1890 Behring and Kitasato showed that serum from immunised animals protects others from tetanus and diphtheria toxins, opening the science of…
  • X-rays1895ResearchedWilhelm Roentgen discovered rays that photograph the inside of the living body.

Machine Age1900 – 1945

  • Vitamins and deficiency diseases1747-1912ResearchedFrom Lind's 1747 scurvy trial and Eijkman's 1897 beriberi work to Funk's 'vitamine' of 1912, diseases were traced to missing food factors.
  • Blood groups and transfusion1901ResearchedKarl Landsteiner found the ABO blood groups, making blood transfusion safe.
  • Electrocardiogram1903ResearchedWillem Einthoven's string galvanometer recorded the heart's electrical signal from the skin in 1903, revealing rhythm disorders and heart attacks.
  • Chlorinated drinking water1908ResearchedJersey City began chlorinating its reservoir water in 1908; killing germs with chlorine cut typhoid and cholera in cities within a few decades.
  • Salvarsan: the magic bullet1909ResearchedPaul Ehrlich's Salvarsan (1909) was the first designed drug to kill a microbe, the syphilis bacterium, without killing the patient.
  • Insulin1921ResearchedBanting, Best, Macleod and Collip isolated insulin in 1921; type 1 diabetes stopped being a death sentence.
  • Antibiotics1928ResearchedPenicillin and its successors made bacterial infections treatable.
  • Sulfa drugs1935ResearchedProntosil, a red dye, cured bacterial blood infections in 1935 and led to the sulfonamides, the first widely useful antibacterial drugs.
  • Chemotherapy1942ResearchedDrugs that attack fast-dividing cells were first used against cancer.
  • Kidney dialysis1943ResearchedWillem Kolff built a rotating-drum artificial kidney in occupied Holland; in 1945 a patient survived kidney failure, and dialysis became life-saving…

Atomic & Space Age1945 – 1990

  • Randomized controlled trial1948ResearchedThe 1948 streptomycin trial, designed by Bradford Hill, made random assignment the standard test of whether a treatment works.
  • World Health Organization1948ResearchedThe WHO began work in 1948 as the UN health agency, coordinating disease surveillance, vaccination drives and international health rules.
  • Smoking causes lung cancer1950ResearchedDoll and Hill's 1950 hospital study and the British Doctors Study from 1951 showed that smoking greatly raises lung cancer risk, founding tobacco…
  • Heart-lung machine1953ResearchedJohn Gibbon's machine took over the work of heart and lungs in 1953, letting surgeons stop the heart and repair it, and opening open-heart surgery.
  • Organ transplantation1954ResearchedReplacing a failing organ with a donor's became routine treatment after the first kidney transplant.
  • Polio vaccines1955ResearchedJonas Salk's injected vaccine (1955) and Albert Sabin's oral one (1961) pushed polio close to eradication; wild cases fell by over 99% since 1988.
  • Cardiac pacemaker1958ResearchedIn 1958 a pacemaker built by Rune Elmqvist was implanted by Åke Senning in Stockholm, the first device to keep a heart beating from inside the body.
  • Medical ultrasound1958ResearchedIan Donald's Glasgow team showed in 1958 that pulses of sound echoing off tissue can image a foetus or a tumour without radiation.
  • Contraceptive pill1960ResearchedEnovid, a steroid-hormone tablet, won US approval for contraception in 1960 and gave women a reliable, self-controlled way to plan pregnancies.
  • Oral rehydration therapy1968-1971ResearchedA drink of water, salt and sugar replaces fluid lost in cholera and childhood diarrhoea; its value was proven in Dhaka and Calcutta in the late 1960s.
  • CT and MRI scanning1971ResearchedComputers reconstruct 3D images of organs from X-rays or magnetic resonance without cutting.
  • Monoclonal antibodies1975ResearchedKöhler and Milstein's hybridoma (1975) produced single antibodies to order, the basis of many cancer, autoimmune and antiviral drugs.
  • In vitro fertilisation1978ResearchedLouise Brown, born in 1978 after Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards fertilised an egg in a dish, was the first of millions of IVF babies.
  • Smallpox eradicated1980ResearchedAfter a WHO campaign of vaccination and outbreak containment, smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, the only human disease ended so far.
  • HIV identified1983ResearchedFrançoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier isolated the AIDS virus in 1983, two years after the first cases, which made blood tests and drug…
  • Statins and heart prevention1987ResearchedAkira Endo found the first statin in a mould in the 1970s; lovastatin reached the market in 1987, and the 4S trial (1994) showed it saves lives.

Digital Age1990 – 2015

  • Antiretroviral therapy (HIV)1996ResearchedA combination of drugs turned HIV from a death sentence into a manageable chronic infection.
  • HPV vaccine2006ResearchedGardasil, approved in 2006, protects against the HPV types that cause most cervical cancers; it is among the first vaccines to prevent a cancer.
  • Checkpoint Immunotherapy2014–2018Current researchAntibodies that release the brakes on T cells (CTLA-4, PD-1) give lasting remissions in melanoma and other cancers; Allison and Honjo won the 2018…

Present2015 – Oct 2026

  • CAR-T cell therapy2017Current researchA patient's own immune cells are re-engineered to hunt cancer and can cure some blood cancers.
  • Gene Therapy (AAV Vectors)2017Current researchHarmless virus shells deliver working genes into the body: Luxturna (2017) was the first FDA-approved in vivo gene therapy; ten AAV products are now…
  • AI in medical diagnosis2018–2026Current researchAlgorithms read scans and slides and are now routine tools, mostly in radiology.
  • COVID-19 pandemic2020ResearchedWHO declared a global health emergency on 30 January 2020 and a pandemic on 11 March; it estimates 14.9 million excess deaths in 2020 and 2021.
  • mRNA technology2020Current researchInstructions written as RNA let the body make its own vaccine or drug protein, designed in days.
  • GLP-1 weight-loss drugs2021Current researchHormone-mimicking injections and pills cut body weight by 15 to 20 percent and help the heart and kidneys.
  • Malaria Vaccines (RTS,S, R21)2021–2024Current researchWHO recommended the first malaria vaccine in 2021 and a second in 2023; by February 2026, 25 African countries offered them in routine child…
  • Pig-organ transplants2022Current researchGene-edited pig kidneys now work in living patients for up to nine months, and the first formal trials have begun.
  • First CRISPR medicines2023Current researchThe first approved gene-editing medicine frees many sickle cell patients from crises; custom editing is now being tried.
  • RSV Vaccines & Antibodies2023Current researchAfter a harmful 1960s failure, stabilised-protein vaccines (May 2023) and the antibody nirsevimab now protect older adults and infants against RSV.
  • Twice-Yearly HIV Prevention2025Current researchLenacapavir, injected every six months, prevented almost all HIV infections in trials; the FDA approved it in June 2025 and African rollout began…

Research Frontier · Todayunsolved as of Oct 2026

  • Antibiotic resistanceopenUnsolvedBacteria are evolving resistance faster than new antibiotics arrive.
  • Controlling agingopenUnsolvedNo treatment has been shown to slow or reverse human aging, the biggest risk factor for most diseases.
  • Curing HIVopenUnsolvedPills hold HIV in check for life, but the virus hides in dormant cells and returns when treatment stops; only about a dozen people appear cured.
  • Curing autoimmune diseasesopenUnsolvedOver 100 diseases arise when the immune system attacks the body; drugs only suppress it, while CAR-T cell resets show remission in small studies.
  • Curing canceropenUnsolvedMany cancers are curable, but spread-out cancers still kill nearly 10 million people a year.
  • Eradicating tuberculosisopenUnsolvedTB is curable, yet it made 10.7 million people ill in 2024 and killed over a million; the old vaccine fails adults and millions go undiagnosed.
  • Organs grown in the labopenUnsolvedSmall tissue pieces can be grown or printed, but a complete transplantable organ cannot.
  • Pandemic preparednessopenUnsolvedThe world still cannot reliably stop a new pandemic virus before it spreads widely.
  • Universal flu vaccineopenUnsolvedFlu shots must be remade every year and still miss; a vaccine that covers all flu strains for years does not exist.

If Solvedbecomes possible

  • Drug-free autoimmune remission2040s?If solvedA one-time or rare treatment resets the immune system, and people at risk are treated before symptoms begin.
  • HIV controlled without drugs2040s?If solvedPeople with HIV stay healthy and non-infectious without daily pills, because the virus is cleared or held down by their own immune system.
  • Infections under control2040s?If solvedNew antibiotics, phages, universal vaccines and early warning keep resistant germs and pandemics in check.
  • One flu shot lasts for years2040s?If solvedA single vaccine protects for years against old and new flu strains and ends the yearly guess about next season's virus.
  • Organs on demand2040s?If solvedReplacement hearts, livers and kidneys grown from a patient's own cells are available when needed.
  • Vaccines that prevent cancer2040s?If solvedVaccines and early screening stop most cancers before they grow into disease.
  • Healthy life to 100 and beyond2050s?If solvedTreatments slow biological aging so that people stay healthy and independent into their 90s and 100s.
  • TB no longer a public threat2050s?If solvedNew vaccines, short regimens and routine testing cut TB to a rare disease, far below today's 10 million cases a year.