December is usually a good time to take stock of what has happened in science around the world in that year. Quite a few interesting things happened in 2015. It was the centenary of Albert Einstein's paper on the Theory of General Relativity (Special Relativity was released in 1905).
The great man hypothesised gravity was a property of space-time. If that is right, there are multiple important consequences at many levels. Although general relativity fits with experimental data, there are also predictions that have not yet been confirmed. For example, if Einstein was correct, there are gravity waves, which have not yet been directly detected. Experiments such as the massive Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory have been devised to try and detect these.
Also, the theory is incomplete in that it cannot as yet be resolved at the quantum level. Incidentally, quantum entanglement - the mysterious way in which changing the state of one particle can instantly change the state of its entangled twin - was demonstrated this year, at a distance of over one kilometre in Delft University, Holland
Biology saw multiple breakthroughs. One was the discovery of an entirely new antibiotic, Teixobactin. This was the first new antibiotic to be discovered in nearly 30 years. It was found and cultured by an entirely new method in a collaborative effort between four institutes in Germany and the US. It was discovered to be effective against tuberculosis, staphylococcus and other common bacteria and what is more, it did the job in an unusual way without the bacteria developing detectable resistance.
Teixobactin could be commercially available within the next five years. This discovery puts heart back into drugs researchers, who were growing desperate as drug-resistance built up to all sorts of antibiotics. Using the new methods, it may also be possible to find and culture more new antibiotics. Apart from the potential breakout in antibiotics, an Ebola vaccine, which was apparently effective at the tail-end of the epidemic, was developed. So was an experimental HIV vaccine that worked on monkeys. Both require quite a lot more work.
In another big development, Duke University managed to grow human muscle in the lab. It contracts and responds to electrical impulses, pharmaceutical drugs and biochemical signals just like natural muscle. This could help enormously with drug research.
Another interesting development was the United Kingdom clearing three parent in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). That could help deal with certain inherited conditions and diseases. It involves DNA donated by two women and one man. A normal egg contains an exact copy of mitochondrial DNA from the mother. If that mitochondrial DNA has some defects, they are passed on. Such defects can be devastating with babies being stillborn or dying early in estimated oen out of 4,000 pregnancies.
One way around this is to replace the mother's DNA entirely - this is normal "two-parent" IVF. A "three-parent egg" replaces only the defective mitochondrial DNA, transplanting healthy mitochondrial DNA from another woman.
However, biologists say 2015 will be remembered as the year of CRISPR, or clustered regularly-interspaced short palindromic repeats. These are DNA sequences containing repeats. These develop naturally as part of the immune response when the body is exposed to foreign genes. The foreign genetic material is "captured" and copied so that the body can recognise and excise, or inactivate, the foreign material.
The killer app is that CRISPRs can be used to excise and edit genes by copying in the sequence that is to be targeted for deletion or inactivation. The possible applications are endless. CRISPR techniques were first described in a key 2012 paper by Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Marie Charpentier. But the technique has gone absolutely mainstream in 2015.
Apart from this, the world was abuzz with tales of extraterrestrial exploration. Enceladus-Cassinni, Pluto-New Horizons, Ceres-Dawn, Mars-Curiosity & Mars Orbiter Mission, C-67P-Philae-Rosetta, Luna-Yutu Rover; there have never been so many exploratory missions whizzing around in space at the same time.
On a more sombre note, 2015 was the hottest year on record, beating 2014. The looming catastrophe of climate change is coming closer and closer. The cacophony in Paris and the lack of consensus in tackling it leave one in despair.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
