We are going to take a break from the intense and divisive political and economic landscape we are living through to focus on something much more positive and upbeat today. We want to bring you some updates on what is going on with technology, biomedical engineering, genomics and their potential impact on your health and life expectancy. For the first time ever, leading medical researchers as well as the business people who invest in their ideas and technology, believe that there is a way to slow and possibly even reverse the aging process. People being born today could potentially live to 120 years old or longer. This has enormous implications for our working lives, our family and our financial resources.
Let’s start by talking through some of the amazing advancements in both the speed and affordability of genomic sequencing. As you can see in the chart above from the National Human Genome Research Institute, over the past two decades, the cost of sequencing the human genome has dropped 100,000-fold: from $100 million per genome, to below $1,000 per genome (current estimates are as low as $300). This means that we can perhaps uncover potential diseases long before symptoms are present and create personalized, preventative care tailored for an individual’s needs.
Next, we need to look no further than this year’s COVID-19, coronavirus outbreak to see the impact of technology, biomedical engineering, machine learning and artificial intelligence converging on a global effort towards creating vaccines and therapeutics as we battle this virus. Politics aside, the speed at which this process is moving forward is astonishing. As those of us in the northern part of the United States head towards the colder and darker days of winter, it may take longer than we want to have vaccines and therapeutics available and widely disseminated to the general public. However, these medical advances are happening in a fraction of the time it would have taken just a couple of decades ago.
There are other things that we will continue to bring you updates on as we continue “Moving Life Forward” together. These include gene therapies, wearable and implanted personal medical tracking devices, and a renewed focus in the medical community on keeping you well, instead of waiting until you are sick to be treated.
What would you do if you had another 20 years or more of healthy and productive life? What could you learn, where could you travel, what experiences and memories could you create and share with the people you love? And, from a financial standpoint, what resources would you need to accumulate to be able to maintain standard of living for that period of time?
These are very important and exciting things to consider. As 100 potentially becomes the new 60, the team at Impel Wealth Management will continue to stay abreast of these issues and their impact on you, our trusted friends and clients.
© 2020 Jesse Hurst