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Works in Progress ·Future-gazing

A Future of Programmable Medicine

by Works in Progress

Published 2026-08-26 12:04:33+00:00

How does medicine change when a drug is just a sequence of genetic code?

0:00 / 25:00 · Narrator Charon

Context

For decades, inventing a new drug has meant relying on endless trial and error to find a chemical shape that happens to block a disease. Writing on 26 August 2026, Jacob Witten looks at a shift away from this guessing game. The piece asks what happens when medicine stops being a chemistry problem and becomes a programming one. If a disease is driven by a specific gene, new therapies mean scientists no longer have to search for a chemical cure. They can just write a sequence of code to switch the problem off.

Show notes

An overview of how small interfering RNA is turning drug development from chemical trial-and-error into a programmable process of gene silencing. Outlines the decades-long engineering effort to keep these fragile molecules intact long enough to enter human cells. Surveys the current state of these therapies, moving from approved treatments for liver conditions to new clinical trials aimed at the brain.

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