1、Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2020 S P E C I A L R E P O R T N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 0 Contents Introduction 1 Microneedles for Painless Injections and Tests 2 Sun-Powered Chemistry 3 Virtual Patients 4 Spatial Computing 5 Digital Medicine 6 Electric Aviation 7 Lower-Carbon Cement 8 Quantum Sensing

2、9 Green Hydrogen 10 Whole-Genome Synthesis Acknowledgements 3 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 Illustrations: Vanessa Branchi 2020 World Economic Forum. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, o

3、r by any information storage and retrieval system. Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 20202 Introduction If some of the many thousands of human volunteers needed to test coronavirus vaccines could have been replaced by digital replicas one of this years Top 10 Emerging Technologies COVID-19 vaccines mi

4、ght have been developed even faster, saving untold lives. Soon virtual clinical trials could be a reality for testing new vaccines and therapies. Other technologies on the list could reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by electrifying air travel and enabling sunlight to directly power the producti

5、on of industrial chemicals. With “spatial” computing, the digital and physical worlds will be integrated in ways that go beyond the feats of virtual reality. And ultrasensitive sensors that exploit quantum processes will set the stage for such applications as wearable brain scanners and vehicles tha

6、t can see around corners. These and the other emerging technologies have been singled out by an international steering group of experts. The group, convened by Scientific American and the World Economic Forum, sifted through more than 75 nominations. To win the nod, the technologies must have the po

7、tential to spur progress in societies and economies by outperforming established ways of doing things. They also need to be novel (that is, not currently in wide use) yet likely to have a major impact within the next three to five years. The steering group met (virtually) to whittle down the candida

8、tes and then closely evaluate the front-runners before making the final decisions. We hope you are as inspired by the reports that follow as we are. Experts highlight advances with the potential to revolutionize industry, healthcare and society Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2020November 2020 The g

9、roup, convened by Scientific American and the World Economic Forum, sifted through more than 75 nominations. Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 20203 Microneedles for Painless Injections and Tests 1 Fewer trips to medical labs make care more accessible MEDICINE Elizabeth ODayAuthor Top 10 Emerging Tech

10、nologies of 20204 Barely visible needles, or “microneedles”, are poised to usher in an era of pain-free injections and blood testing. Whether attached to a syringe or a patch, microneedles prevent pain by avoiding contact with nerve endings. Typically 50-2,000 microns in length (about the depth of a

11、 sheet of paper), and 1-100 microns wide (about the width of human hair), they penetrate the dead top layer of skin to reach into the second layer the epidermis consisting of viable cells and a liquid known as interstitial fluid. But most do not reach, or only barely touch, the underlying dermis whe

12、re the nerve endings lie, along with blood and lymph vessels and connective tissue. Many microneedle syringe and patch applications are already available for administering vaccines and many more are in clinical trials for use in treating diabetes, cancer and neuropathic pain. Because these devices i

13、nsert drugs directly into the epidermis or dermis, they deliver medicines much more efficiently than familiar transdermal patches, which rely on diffusion through the skin. This year researchers debuted a novel technique for treating skin disorders such as psoriasis, warts and certain types of cance

14、r: mixing star-shaped microneedles into a therapeutic cream or gel. The needles temporary gentle perforation of the skin enhances passage of the therapeutic agent. Many microneedle products are moving towards commercialization for rapid, painless draws of blood or interstitial fluid and for use in d

15、iagnostic testing or health monitoring. Tiny holes made by the needles induce a local change in pressure in the epidermis or dermis that forces interstitial fluid or blood into a collection device. If the needles are coupled to biosensors, the devices can, within minutes, directly measure biological

16、 markers indicative of health or disease status, such as glucose, cholesterol, alcohol, drug by-products or immune cells. Some products would allow the draws to be done at home and mailed to a lab or analysed on the spot. At least one product has already cleared regulatory hurdles for such use. The

17、United States and Europe recently approved the TAP blood collection device from Seventh Sense Biosystems, which enables lay people to collect a small sample of blood on their own, whether for sending to a lab or for self-monitoring. In research settings, microneedles are also being integrated with w

18、ireless communication devices to measure a biological molecule, use the measurement to determine a proper drug dose and then deliver that dose an approach that could help realize the promise of personalized medicine. Microneedle devices could enable testing and treatment to be delivered in underserv

19、ed areas because they do not require costly equipment or a lot of training to administer. Micron Biomedical has developed one such easy-to-use device: a bandage-sized patch that anyone can apply. Another company, Vaxxas, is developing a microneedle vaccine patch that in animal and early human testin

20、g elicited enhanced immune responses using a mere fraction of the usual dose. Microneedles can also reduce the risk of transmitting blood-borne viruses and decrease hazardous waste from the disposal of conventional needles. Tiny needles are not always an advantage; they will not suffice when large d

21、oses are needed. Not all drugs can pass through microneedles, nor can all bio-markers be sampled through them. More research is needed to understand how factors such as the age and weight of the patient, the site of injection and the delivery technique influence the effectiveness of microneedle-base

22、d technologies. Still, these painless prickers can be expected to significantly expand drug delivery and diagnostics and new uses will arise as investigators devise ways to use them in organs beyond the skin. The needles temporary gentle perforation of the skin enhances passage of the therapeutic ag

23、ent. Microneedles are typically 1-100 microns wide (about the width of human hair). Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 20205 Sun-Powered Chemistry 2 Visible light can drive processes that convert carbon dioxide into common materials CHEMICAL ENGINEERING Javier Garcia Martinez Author Top 10 Emerging Tec

24、hnologies of 20206 The manufacture of many chemicals important to human health and comfort consumes fossil fuels, thereby contributing to extractive processes, carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. A new approach employs sunlight to convert waste carbon dioxide into these needed chemicals, po

25、tentially reducing emissions in two ways by using the unwanted gas as a raw material, and sunlight, not fossil fuels, as the source of energy needed for production. This process is becoming increasingly feasible thanks to advances in sunlight-activated catalysts, or photocatalysts. In recent years,

26、investigators have developed photocatalysts that break the resistant double bond between carbon and oxygen in carbon dioxide. This is a critical first step in creating “solar” refineries that produce useful compounds from the waste gas including “platform” molecules that can serve as raw materials f

27、or the synthesis of such varied products as medicines, detergents, fertilizers and textiles. Photocatalysts are typically semiconductors, which require high-energy ultraviolet light to generate the electrons involved in the transformation of carbon dioxide. Yet ultraviolet light is both scarce (repr

28、esenting just 5% of sunlight) and harmful. The development of new catalysts that work under more abundant and benign visible light has therefore been a major objective. That demand is being addressed by careful engineering of the composition, structure and morphology of existing catalysts, such as t

29、itanium dioxide. Although it efficiently converts carbon dioxide into other molecules solely in response to ultraviolet light, doping it with nitrogen greatly lowers the energy required to do so. The altered catalyst now needs only visible light to yield widely used chemicals such as methanol, forma

30、ldehyde and formic acid collectively important in the manufacture of adhesives, foams, plywood, cabinetry, flooring and disinfectants. At the moment, solar chemical research is occurring mainly in academic laboratories, including at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, run by the Californ

31、ia Institute of Technology in partnership with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; a Netherlands-based collaboration of universities, industry and research and technology organizations called the Sunrise consortium; and the department of heterogeneous reactions at the Max Planck Institute for Che

32、mical Energy Conversion in Mlheim, Germany. Some start-ups are working on a different approach to transforming carbon dioxide into useful substances; namely, applying electricity to drive the chemical reactions. Using electricity to power the reactions would obviously be less environmentally friendl

33、y than using sunlight if the electricity were derived from fossil-fuel combustion, but reliance on photovoltaics could overcome that drawback. The advances occurring in the sunlight-driven conversion of carbon dioxide into chemicals are sure to be commercialized and further developed by start-ups or

34、 other companies in the coming years. Then the chemical industry by transforming what today is waste carbon dioxide into valuable products will move a step closer to becoming part of a true, waste-free, circular economy, as well as helping to make the goal of generating negative emissions a reality.

35、 Creating molecules that can serve as raw materials for the synthesis of medicines, detergents, fertilizers and textiles. A new approach employs sunlight to convert waste carbon dioxide into these needed chemicals. Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 20207 Virtual Patients 3 Replacing humans with simula

36、tions could make clinical trials faster and safer HEALTHCARE Daniel E. Hurtado and Sophia M. Velastegui Authors Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 20208 Every day, it seems, some new algorithm enables computers to diagnose a disease with unprecedented accuracy, renewing predictions that computers will

37、soon replace doctors. What if computers could replace patients as well? If virtual humans could have replaced real people in some stages of a coronavirus vaccine trial, for instance, it could have sped development of a preventive tool and slowed down the pandemic. Similarly, potential vaccines that

38、werent likely to work could have been identified early, slashing trial costs and avoiding testing poor vaccine candidates on living volunteers. These are some of the benefits of “in silico medicine”, or the testing of drugs and treatments on virtual organs or body systems to predict how a real perso

39、n will respond to the therapies. For the foreseeable future, real patients will be needed in late-stage studies, but in silico trials will make it possible to conduct quick and inexpensive first assessments of safety and efficacy, drastically reducing the number of live human subjects required for e

40、xperimentation. With virtual organs, the modelling begins by feeding anatomical data drawn from non-invasive, high-resolution imaging of an individuals actual organ into a complex mathematical model of the mechanisms that govern that organs function. Algorithms running on powerful computers resolve

41、the resulting equations and unknowns, generating a virtual organ that looks and behaves like the real thing. In silico clinical trials are already under way to an extent. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for instance, is using computer simulations in place of human trials for evaluating ne

42、w mammography systems. The agency has also published guidance for designing trials of drugs and devices that include virtual patients. Beyond speeding results and mitigating the risks of clinical trials, in silico medicine can be used in place of risky interventions that are required for diagnosing

43、or planning treatment of certain medical conditions. For example, HeartFlow Analysis, a cloud-based service approved by the FDA, enables clinicians to identify coronary artery disease based on CT images of a patients heart. The HeartFlow system uses these images to construct a fluid dynamic model of

44、 the blood running through the coronary blood vessels, thereby identifying abnormal conditions and their severity. Without this technology, doctors would need to perform an invasive angiogram to decide whether and how to intervene. Experimenting on digital models of individual patients can also help

45、 personalize therapy for any number of conditions and is already used in diabetes care. The philosophy behind in silico medicine is not new. The ability to create and simulate the performance of an object under hundreds of operating conditions has been a cornerstone of engineering for decades, such

46、as for designing electronic circuits, aircraft and buildings. Various hurdles remain to its widespread implementation in medical research and treatment. First, the predictive power and reliability of this technology must be confirmed and that will require several advances. Those include the generati

47、on of high-quality medical databases from a large, ethnically diverse patient base that has women as well as men; refinement of mathematical models to account for the many interacting processes in the body; and further modification of artificial intelligence methods that were developed primarily for

48、 computer-based speech and image recognition and need to be extended to provide biological insights. The scientific community and industry partners are addressing these issues through initiatives such as the Living Heart Project by Dassault Systmes, the Virtual Physiological Human Institute for Inte

49、grative Biomedical Research and Microsofts Healthcare NExT. In recent years the FDA and European regulators have approved some commercial uses of computer-based diagnostics, but meeting regulatory demands requires considerable time and money. Creating demand for these tools is challenging given the complexity of the healthcare ecosystem. In silico medicine must be able to deliver cost-effective value for patients, clinicians and healthcare organizations to accelerate their adoption of the technology. Potential vaccines that werent likely