Okay, I promise I am done with the “top” lists after this. But, this is an important one! When the clock changes to 12:00 AM on January 1, 2020, not only will we welcome in a new year, but a new decade. That’s big, and it gives us the perfect opportunity to reflect on the last 10 years.
Research scientists made leaps and bounds in the 2010s with discoveries that have had direct, immediate effects on science and technology, as well as society. In that time, Laboratory Equipment has covered a lot of news. I took a look back at some of our biggest articles of the decade and compiled the list below. See what you think of Laboratory Equipment’s top 10 scientific discoveries of the decade (presented in no particular order).
1. DNA Sequencing Technology
One could argue the No. 1 discovery of the previous decade (2000s) was the sequencing of the entire human genome, co-published in Nature and Science in 2001. It took 13 years and nearly $3 billion dollars. With today’s next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, the entire human genome can be sequenced for $1,000 in a single day. You would be hard-pressed to find a more drastic change in any other area of research. NGS, also referred to as Massively Parallel Sequencing in the forensic industry, has ushered in an era of personalized medicine, where the idea of at-home genomic analyzers are closer to the present than the future.
2. Detecting Gravitational Waves
In late 2015, scientists, for the first time, observed ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves, confirming a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity. In 2017, LIGO scientists felt another set of tremors, this time made when two neutron stars collided. Since the first detection which took decades, the elusive tremors are being spotted more often, with five possible observations in May 2019 alone.
3. The CRISPR Era
In 2012, Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues at UC Berkeley (as well as Feng Zhang and colleagues at the Broad Institute) filed a patent on the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system. The CRISPR system is the first to create a straightforward way to edit DNA. Doudna quickly called a moratorium on further research to ensure the ethics of the system were in place before researchers exploited the high-potential technology. Coming up on the end of the decade, in the United States, it is still illegal to edit the germline of a human. However, in July 2019, doctors in Tennessee did use CRISPR to treat a patient with sickle cell disease.
4. Tracking Down the Higgs boson
In 2013, physicists at CERN confirmed they found the elusive Higgs boson particle after decades of searching. The key to the discovery was CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, which runs in a 17-mile underground tunnel beneath the Swiss-French border. Scientists initially found a new particle in 2012—one that acted differently than all others—but needed months more to sift through all the data that comes with attempting to simulate 1 trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. In March of the following year, scientists confirmed their hypothesis—the Higgs boson was found.
5.Curiosity and New Horizons
The 2010s are arguably the biggest decade for aerospace since the United States landed men on the moon in 1969. NASA’s Curiosity Rover landed on Mars in August 2012 after a 9-month journey. Only one month later, NASA announced Curiosity had found evidence of an ancient stream on the Red Planet. Analysis of a rock sample yielded sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon—key chemical ingredients for life. The Gale Crater, where Curiosity’s initial find was located, is now thought to have gone through a cycle of waterway overflow and dry up over a period of 3.5 billion years.
On July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made history as the first probe to ever fly by Pluto and its moons. In December of that year, New Horizons sent back a series of snapshots—the best closeups of Pluto that humans have ever seen.
6. Action Regarding the Climate Change Crisis
Time’s 2019 Person of the Year is 16-year-old Greta Thunberg who has gained notoriety for protesting climate inaction, including with a fiery, viral speech made at the UN Climate Action Summit in September 2019. Clearly, climate change has heavily influenced this decade. In a series of climate-related papers, scientists were finally able to capture the world’s attention. Monumental published papers this decade include research on: coral bleaching that is killing the Great Barrier Reef, CO2 levels of 400 ppm, the highest in human history, warming oceans destroying both marine and terrestrial ecosystems, the complete loss of icebergs in Greenland and Antarctica, and more. In 2015, the world’s nations gathered together in an attempt to stop the warming by negotiating the Paris Agreement, which aims to keep warming below 2° C.
7. Finding New Human Ancestors
In 2010, anthropologists in Siberia discovered a finger bone in the Denisova Cave. They determined it belonged to a previously undiscovered human ancestor that disappeared about 50,000 years ago, but not before passing some of their genetic makeup to Homo sapiens. Denisovan DNA can be found in the genes of modern humans across Asia and some Pacific islands. Soon after, researchers completed the first sequence of the entire Neanderthal genome. They concluded that up to 2 percent of the DNA in the genome of present-day humans outside of Africa originated in Neanderthals or in Neanderthals' ancestors. Armed with additional information, scientists then discovered that both Neanderthals and Denisovans interbred with modern humans.
8. Immunotherapy Takes Center Stage
The benefits of immunotherapy have been hypothesized and even proven to an extent in years before, but the 2010s saw the therapy take center stage. The FDA approved immunotherapy treatments for many types of cancers in the 2010s, mostly thanks to industry targeting the protein PD-1/PD-L1. Today, 10 PD-1/L1 “checkpoint inhibitor” immunotherapy drugs have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for 17 different types of cancer. Immunotherapy, however, is still in its infancy. For example, it only works for some patients, others do not respond to the treatment at all—and scientists don’t know why. That being said, all signs point to the 2020s being an even bigger decade for this cancer-busting treatment.
9. First Approved Gene Therapy for Genetic Disease
In December 2017, the Food and Drug Administration approved LUXTURNA for the gene therapy treatment of a rare form of blindness. LUXTURNA is the first approved gene therapy in which a corrective gene is given directly to patients. The gene mutation interferes with the production of an enzyme needed for normal vision. LUXTURNA is delivered via two injections — one for each eye — that replace the defective gene that prevents the retina, tissue at the back of the eye, from converting light into electronic signals sent to the brain.
10. SpaceX and Commercial/Private Space Travel
I didn’t really want to put another space-related event on this list, but I would be remiss to not mention SpaceX. In May 2012, SpaceX’s Dragon docked with the International Space Station (ISS), making it the first-ever commercial spacecraft to do so. Seven years later in 2019, Space X’s Crew Dragon, which is designed to ferry astronauts to the ISS, launched into orbit. It was the first time that a commercial spaceship designed for humans had ever left Earth. As the decade unfolded, it became apparent that commercial/private spacecraft would be crucial to the United States’ continuing aerospace research and presence. Of course, that could change depending on who is in the Oval Office. Regardless, SpaceX made its arrival known in the 2010s.