We like to imagine that successful people are truly self-made, rising to prominence based solely on their own hard work and genius. But the truth is that everyone, even the great figures of history, needs a little help along the way. In this roundup of 10 significant people, we shine a light on the behind‑the‑scenes players who made the headlines possible.

10 Significant People Behind Great Figures

10 Genghis Khan’s Adviser

Yelu Chucai is the unknown figure behind the great success of Genghis Khan’s Mongolian empire. Not a Mongol himself, he had nomadic Khitan ancestry, but grew up in China. Captured by the Mongols, he met the Khan at 28 and quickly impressed him with his vast knowledge and administrative talent. Nicknamed “Urtu Saqal” for his long beard, he soon became one of Genghis’s most important advisers.

Chucai was most notable for convincing the Mongols to tax conquered cities instead of destroying them, arguing that the money and manpower gained from the cities could fund future conquests. With this line of reasoning, he almost single‑handedly averted a Mongol plan to wipe out the northern Chinese peasantry in order to return the land to pasture.

When Genghis’s son and successor Ogodei mocked him for always pleading on the people’s behalf, Chucai famously responded that empires could be conquered on horseback, but never ruled from it. Ogodei apparently came to agree, since he retained Chucai as his chief adviser after the death of his father. However, his fellow advisers conspired against him and he fell out of favor until his death, when he was buried in great splendor by the Mongols who had once been his captors.

9 Disney’s Sidekick

Great minds think alike and Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks were no exception. The pair became firm friends while working at the Pesman‑Rubin commercial art agency in Kansas City. They soon teamed up to form Iwerks‑Disney Commercial Artists, which didn’t last long. The flamboyant Disney eventually set off for Hollywood and formed his own production company, while the timid Iwerks remained in Kansas City doing animation for ad agencies. But Disney knew his friend had real talent and encouraged him to take a chance and join him out in California. In 1924, Iwerks agreed and Disney gave him a 20 percent ownership stake in the company.

Not long after they began working together, a rift occurred between Disney and Charlie Mintz, the distributor of Disney’s popular “Oswald The Lucky Rabbit” shorts. Since Mintz owned the rights to the character, he fired Disney and then hired most of his animators out from under him. But Iwerks refused to leave his friend and the pair quickly created a replacement character: Mickey Mouse.

Iwerks animated the early Mickey shorts almost by himself, which required him to turn out an incredible 600 drawings per day. Luckily, the shorts were a massive success and saved the company. Sadly, Disney and Iwerks had a falling‑out a few years later and Iwerks left the company to strike out on his own. But together they had already changed animation history. While Disney was the brain behind Mickey, Iwerks was the animator that brought him to life.

8 The Wright Brothers’ Mentor

It is said that while the Wright brothers taught the world to fly, Octave Chanute taught the Wright brothers how to fly. A self‑taught engineer, Octave Chanute became famous and successful for his unusual and creative designs. Among other things, he was the first person to realize that wood could be preserved by treating it with creosote. But Chanute’s real passion was flight. At the age of 54, he decided to focus his energies on developing the budding field of aviation.

Before Chanute, the study of flight was carried out haphazardly by independent researchers around the world. Almost single‑handedly, Chanute turned it into a cohesive field of study. He started lengthy correspondences with anyone he could find working on the topic, collecting and collating their findings. He organized the first scientific aeronautical conferences and financially supported pioneers like Louis Mouillard and Otto Lilienthal. He debunked false breakthroughs and gathered the real ones in his classic handbook Progress In Flying Machines. He carried out numerous experiments of his own, happily sharing his data with anyone who was interested. The Chanute Glider (pictured above) was the most advanced aircraft of its time.

Chanute took a particular interest in the Wright brothers, who frequently wrote to him for advice. Their 1900 glider was based on his research, and Chanute often sent his assistants to help the brothers out. He was the one who suggested that they should conduct their experiments in a sandy location with strong winds, which prompted their move to Kitty Hawk. He believed more than anyone that the Wrights would succeed in achieving powered flight, which they did in 1903.

Sadly, Chanute fell out with the brothers in 1905, when they became involved in patent disputes with other early aviators. Chanute had never patented his own work, believing that technical knowledge should be distributed freely. He had always dreamed that the ability to fly would bring about a new age of enlightenment and saw the Wrights’ desire to control the new technology as selfish. Happily, they later reconciled enough that Wilbur Wright delivered Chanute’s eulogy.

7 Apple’s Third Founder

Of course, most people have heard of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, but there was actually a third Apple co‑founder: Ronald Wayne. The engineer’s involvement with Apple started when he met Steve Jobs while working at Atari in the ’70s. Jobs asked for Wayne’s help drafting the original partnership agreement that established Apple. After Wayne mediated a dispute between Jobs and Wozniak, they asked him to come on board as a partner. Wayne was given 10 percent of the company, allowing him to act as a sort of tiebreaker between Jobs and Wozniak, who each got 45 percent of the shares. Wayne also designed Apple’s first logo, wrote the company’s first operating manual, and drew up most of the documents. As Wozniak explained in his autobiography, Wayne “seemed to know all the things we didn’t.”

But Wayne was a veteran of several failed business ventures and he feared Apple would also go under, putting him into debt. Additionally, he was significantly older than Jobs or Wozniak and felt unwilling to put in the relentless work required to make Apple a success. Less than a month after the company was formed, he sold his shares to Jobs and Wozniak for $800. He was later paid an additional $1,500 to forfeit any claims on the company. Wayne’s stock would be worth as much as $35 billion today. However, Wayne insists that he doesn’t regret leaving Apple, since he lacked any passion for computing. In fact, he’s never even owned an Apple machine, feeling too familiar with Microsoft Windows to bother switching. As he told CNN, “What can I say? You make a decision based on your understanding of the circumstances, and you live with it.”

6 Martin Luther King’s Twin

Today, Ralph Abernathy is not as well‑known as he should be. In part, that’s due to the scandal caused by his book, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, which very briefly mentioned that Martin Luther King Jr. had engaged in extramarital affairs, including on the night before his death. The book made Abernathy a pariah among many of his former comrades, with Jesse Jackson writing that it “appeals to the most prurient tendencies in current public life and gives comfort to the civil‑rights movement’s enemies.” But during King’s life, there was no one closer to him than Ralph Abernathy.

In fact, King even described Abernathy as his best friend in his last sermon before he was assassinated. Abernathy was King’s closest ally and confidant at the height of the civil‑rights struggle, and King consulted him before all key decisions. They were basically inseparable, sharing everything from meals to prison cells, to the point that it’s hard to find a public photo of King without Abernathy visible in the background. Even the famous picture of King meeting Malcolm X has Abernathy standing right between them. They were soon referred to as the movement’s twins, while Abernathy was dubbed King’s alter ego.

Abernathy stayed with King right up until his assassination in 1968. They were standing on their hotel balcony when Abernathy stepped inside to put on some cologne. It probably saved his life. King was shot by a sniper mere seconds later.

5 T.S. Eliot’s Biggest Fan

Today, T.S. Eliot is one of the most famous poets of the 20th century, while Ezra Pound’s works are only rarely read. But when the two met in 1914, Pound was far more popular and famous. Pound was a fan of Eliot’s “The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which he described as “the best poem I have yet had or seen from an American.” He soon took the younger man under his wing, forming one of the most unlikely friendships in literary history. Eliot was a somber and timid individual while Pound was an outrageously flamboyant troublemaker, an anti‑Semite, and a fascist.

But Pound played a key role in Eliot’s development, editing his work masterfully and arranging for it to be published in influential magazines. Pound even broke the news to Eliot’s parents that their son was abandoning his career to become a poet. Without Pound, Eliot’s masterpiece “The Waste Land” might still be known as “He Do The Police In Different Voices.”

In fact, Pound had a habit of mentoring promising young authors who later became famous, helping to popularize everyone from Ernest Hemingway to James Joyce. Hemingway estimated that Pound spent only a fifth of his time on his own work, dedicating the rest to helping his friends: “He defends them when they are attacked, he gets them into magazines and out of jail. He loans them money. He sells their pictures. He writes articles about them. He introduces them to wealthy women. He gets publishers to take their books… And in the end a few of them refrain from knifing him at the first opportunity.”

Hemingway himself refrained from knifing Pound until the depths of his deranged anti‑Semitism became clear during World War II, causing the author to declare his former friend “obviously crazy… He deserves punishment and disgrace but what he really deserves most is ridicule.”

4 Fitzgerald And Hemingway

Pound wasn’t the only one to champion Hemingway during his early years. Arguably the greatest American writer in history might have remained completely unknown if not for the efforts of his friend and fellow author F. Scott Fitzgerald. The two first met in 1925, when Fitzgerald was already an acclaimed author and Hemingway was just a journalist with a handful of short stories and poems to his name. They quickly became close friends and Fitzgerald introduced Hemingway to his famous editor, Max Perkins.

The biggest help Fitzgerald offered Hemingway was editing his breakthrough work The Sun Also Rises, a novel about a dissolute group of American expatriates drifting from Paris to a bullfight in Spain. Perkins thought Hemingway’s first draft was unpublishable and Fitzgerald agreed, writing a detailed 10‑page critique of the book’s “careless and ineffectual” aspects. He was particularly scathing about the opening chapter, declaring that “when so many people can write well [and] the competition is so heavy I can’t imagine how you could have done these first 20 pages so casually.”

To his credit, Hemingway took the advice, cutting the first 16 pages of the book entirely and making substantial revisions elsewhere. However, he lied about the issue in his posthumously published memoir A Moveable Feast, which claims that Fitzgerald never saw the book until the final draft was with the publisher.

3 The American Who Fought For Castro

Besides Che Guevara and the Castro brothers, we’re largely unfamiliar with the people who fought against the brutal Cuban regime of Fulgencio Batista. Which is a shame, considering that we’re missing out on such amazing figures as William Alexander Morgan (pictured on the far right), the American who fought with Castro.

Born in 1928, Morgan left home as a teenager and joined the army at 18. After spending five years in jail for deserting, he got married and began running errands for the Mafia. In the 1950s, he became involved in smuggling guns to the revolutionaries fighting to overthrow Batista. Quickly becoming a believer in their cause, Morgan joined their fight in 1957. Soon, Morgan rose through the ranks to become a comandante, a title only granted to one other foreigner, a certain Che Guevara.

After the fall of Batista in 1959, Morgan arrived in Havana to chants of “Americano!” Although staunchly anti‑Communist, he initially remained loyal to Fidel Castro, who was not openly Marxist at that time. When he was offered a million dollars to turn against Castro, he played along, broadcasting the sounds of a fake uprising to lure a squad of Dominican invaders into an ambush. But when Fidel began to display socialist leanings, he turned against him for real, arranging to smuggle weapons to a new rebel group opposing Castro. He was caught and executed in 1961.

2 Winston Churchill’s Father Figure

Born in Ireland, William Bourke Cockran came to the US at the age of 17. Settling in New York, he became an eminent attorney, served five terms in Congress, and was widely declared the greatest public speaker of his time. His skills as an orator were so good Churchill himself described him as the best speaker he had ever heard, declaring that he had “never seen his like, or in some respects his equal.”

Cockran apparently had a brief relationship with Churchill’s mother after the death of her husband, and they remained close friends. When Churchill was a young man, he decided to visit the US and Cockran agreed to put him up in his luxurious New York townhouse. Cockran eventually became something of a father figure to Churchill, advising and mentoring him in the art of public speaking.

Under Cockran’s tutelage, Churchill began to take an interest in politics and began emulating Cockran’s delivery pattern when addressing audiences. Churchill’s early political and economic views were also modeled on Cockran’s. Six years later, Churchill was elected to Parliament and became known for his own speaking skills.

1 The Other Oracle

Regarded by many as the most successful investor of the 20th century, Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha,” is regularly ranked among the richest people in the world. But a big part in Buffett’s success story belongs to his little‑known friend, Charlie Munger. The two have been friends for almost 60 years and Munger has served as Buffett’s second‑in‑command for the last 37. In a neat twist, Munger’s first job was actually working for Buffet’s grandfather at $1.98 an hour, although he didn’t meet the younger Warren until years later.

Before meeting Munger, Buffett followed the investing philosophy of his mentor, Benjamin Graham, who believed in buying underpriced assets and quickly selling them when their true value became apparent. This netted Buffett a huge fortune in his early years, but Munger wasn’t convinced it was the best way forward. Instead, he argued in favor of paying a fair price for good companies and then holding on to them as they grew, trusting that the long‑term yields would justify the initial investment. It required patience and good management, but Munger argued that over time the profit margins would be even greater than Graham’s short‑term buy‑to‑sell strategy.

Buffet found Munger’s ideas strange at first, but eventually came to embrace them, writing that “it took a powerful force to move me on from Graham’s limiting views. It was the power of Charlie’s mind. He expanded my horizons.” Munger’s philosophy eventually yielded huge results, helping to turn Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway into one of the largest conglomerates in the world.

Humans have an unquenchable fascination with hue. The way a shade can lift our spirits, grab our gaze, or even define a nation’s identity is nothing short of magical. From ancient pigments that cost a king’s ransom to modern ribbons that rally entire continents, color has been an ever‑present player in the drama of human civilization. In this roundup we’ll explore 10 amazing ways colors have left an indelible mark on our world.

10 Amazing Ways Colors Have Influenced Our World

Back in the year 431, the Catholic hierarchy decided to assign specific colors to its most revered saints, granting the Virgin Mary a shade of blue that was then a rare and costly dye. This exclusive hue, which eventually evolved into the deep navy we recognize today, came to embody qualities like trust, purity, and innocence, and it even inspired the adoption of blue in police and military uniforms across the globe.

As centuries rolled on, the original sanctified aura of blue shifted toward notions of authority and, at times, even authoritarianism. Recognizing this evolution, the United Nations deliberately chose a lighter, sky‑blue for its peacekeeping forces, underscoring how a single color can travel from the altar to the arena of global diplomacy.

9 Color Tv Changed American Politics

When NBC first rolled out a fully color‑broadcast network in 1976, it introduced a luminous map that painted Republican‑leaning states in blue and Democratic‑leaning states in red. Other networks soon followed suit, yet by the 1980 election there was no uniform standard—some channels showed Reagan’s states in blue, others in red.

The turning point arrived during the nail‑biting 2000 presidential race, when networks finally settled on a consistent scheme: red for the Republican candidate George W. Bush and blue for the Democrat Al Gore. From that moment, the terms “red states” and “blue states” entered everyday political chatter and have remained fixtures of American discourse ever since.

8 Purple Proof Of Royalty

In the ancient Mediterranean, a humble sea snail called Bolinus brandaris secreted a mucus that could be turned into a vivid purple dye. Harvesting a single ounce required the crushing of roughly 250,000 of these snails, making the pigment astronomically expensive. A pound of this royal purple could buy a year’s wages for an average worker, cementing its status as the exclusive color of emperors, pharaohs, and high‑ranking officials across Rome, Egypt, and Persia.

The Byzantine Empire took the association to its zenith, draping its rulers in purple, signing edicts with purple ink, and even referring to heirs as “born in the purple.” The color remained a tightly guarded privilege in England until 1856, when a teenage chemist named William Henry Perkins inadvertently synthesized a synthetic purple while searching for an anti‑malaria remedy, finally democratizing the hue for everyday use.

7 Pink As A Color Of Support

The pink ribbon we now associate with breast‑cancer awareness actually sprang from a lineage of colored ribbons. In 1979, Penny Laingen used a yellow ribbon to show solidarity with her husband during the Iran hostage crisis. A decade later, Visual AIDS introduced a red ribbon to raise awareness for HIV/AIDS, prompting a wave of cause‑specific ribbons that culminated in The New York Times dubbing 1992 the “Year of the Ribbon.”

Eventually, pink emerged as the emblem for breast‑cancer advocacy, becoming perhaps the most successful ribbon campaign in history. From firefighters donning pink helmets to NFL teams sporting the hue on uniforms, the pink ribbon’s reach now spans continents, industries, and even construction equipment.

6 Orange Varnish Makes Music Worth Millions

Antonio Stradivari, the legendary luthier of the late 1600s and early 1700s, crafted violins whose sound continues to fetch tens of millions at auction. A striking feature of his instruments is the luminous orange varnish that coats each piece, a hue that has become synonymous with the very soul of a Stradivarius.

While it would be an oversimplification to credit the varnish alone for the unparalleled tone, researchers have long suspected that this orange coating contributed a vital element to the instrument’s resonance. Modern analysis reveals that Stradivari’s recipe relied on readily available materials, yet no contemporary maker has replicated the timeless brilliance of his orange‑finished masterpieces.

5 International Orange Defines A City

In the 1930s, most bridges were painted in utilitarian shades of black, gray, or silver. When engineers began constructing the massive suspension span over the Golden Gate Strait, architect Irving Morrow envisioned a color that would match the bridge’s grand scale and graceful form. He argued that the structure’s unprecedented size demanded an “unique and unconventional treatment from every point of view.”

Drawing inspiration from the red‑toned steel primer used during construction, Morrow assembled a multidisciplinary team of engineers, painters, and sculptors to experiment with pigments. Their collaborative effort produced a bold hue known as International Orange, a shade that would become inseparable from the bridge’s identity.

Today, International Orange not only defines one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks but also serves as a visual shorthand for the city of San Francisco itself, proving that a single color can become a city’s signature.

4 Yellow Topples A Tyrant

During Ferdinand Marcos’s authoritarian rule of the Philippines, opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino favored the color yellow. After Ninoy’s assassination in 1983, mourners adopted the tune “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ’Round the Old Oak Tree” as a rallying cry, draping yellow ribbons around the airport where he fell.

Yellow quickly morphed into the emblem of the burgeoning People Power movement. Ninoy’s widow, Corazon Aquino, sported a bright yellow dress throughout her campaign, boldly declaring that the loss of her husband had stripped her of fear. The hue spread to every facet of the revolution—t‑shirts, banners, caps, even toilet paper—creating a sea of sunshine that symbolized hope and unity.

The massive, non‑violent three‑day rally attracted roughly two million participants, compelling the military and government to side with the protestors. Marcos ultimately fled, and Corazon Aquino was elected president in 1986, sealing the Yellow Revolution’s place in history.

3 White’s Role In Combat

In the Second Punic War, a Carthaginian vessel hoisted white wool and olive branches to signal a desire to surrender. The practice resurfaced in 69 CE during the Second Battle of Cremona, where a white banner again signaled a request for parley. Over time, the white flag became entrenched in Western tradition as the universal symbol of capitulation.

Simultaneously, ancient China during the Eastern Han Dynasty independently adopted white standards to denote non‑combatants, such as heralds, ensuring they were not mistaken for fighters. The white flag’s prominence grew so extensive that modern treaties now criminalize its misuse, treating deceptive deployment as a war crime.

2 A Morbid Brown Creates Cultural Heritage

Artists like Edward Burne‑Jones and Martin Drolling created masterpieces—such as “The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon” and “L’interieur d’une cuisine”—using a startlingly macabre pigment: ground‑up human mummies. By the 16th century, a thriving trade in mummified remains had emerged, supplying the market with “Mummy Brown,” a paint made from powdered human tissue.

While some contemporaries praised the pigment for its fluidity and delicate film, many found the practice repugnant. The controversy peaked when Burne‑Jones learned of the grisly origin of his brown tube; his widow recounted how he hurried to the studio, demanded the sole remaining tube be buried, and oversaw a solemn interment marked by a freshly planted daisy.

Despite its unsettling roots, Mummy Brown persisted in the artist’s palette well into the 20th century, with production continuing as late as 1964, illustrating how a color’s provenance can be as compelling as its visual impact.

1 A Green Poisoned Napoleon Bonaparte

The exact cause of Napoleon Bonaparte’s demise has sparked endless debate. While some point to a stomach ulcer, forensic examinations of his hair and the wallpaper in his Longwood exile home reveal a troubling presence of arsenic.

In the late 18th century, chemist Carl Scheele introduced a vibrant pigment called Scheele’s Green, which relied heavily on arsenic compounds. This toxic shade adorned the walls of Napoleon’s exile residence, exposing him to a potential source of the deadly element.

Subsequent analyses confirmed arsenic residues in both the wallpaper and Napoleon’s hair. Though it remains impossible to definitively declare the green pigment as the fatal agent, the evidence suggests that the very color that once brightened his surroundings may have contributed to his untimely end.

Believe it or not, one-fifth of the 21st century is already behind us, and the past 20 years were pretty intense. While there were plenty of social and political changes across the world, one industry that has seen significant advancement is medicine.

The first 20 years of the 21st century have seen advancements in the way we identify, catalog, and treat a plethora of diseases. This list highlights the 10 most significant medical advances made in the first fifth of the 21st century.

10 Prosthetics Have Gone Bionic

The Six Million Doller Man made it seem like bionic implants and prostheses were an impossible future. That show aired in the 1970s, and the future is now! Of course, people aren’t transformed from crippled astronauts into superheroes, but bionic prosthetics have gone from science fiction to reality.

It will be a while before these limbs look and feel like biological appendages. Still, advancements are being made towards that goal. Modern prostheses can function better than past versions. Some even make it possible for the wearer to manipulate them with their minds.

By placing electrodes on various parts of the skull, a person can manipulate their bionic prostheses by thinking. The technology needs some work, but it’s been proven to function with some patients being able to open and close a bionic hand to pick up and manipulate objects.

The technology has gone beyond manipulation to make it possible to “feel” with bionic fingers. Other advancements include bionic lenses that restore vision. Work is being done to create implantable neuroprosthetic devices that can control computers, so expect this technology to improve and advance over the next 20 years.

9 HIV/AIDS Treatment Has Taken The Fight To The Virus

For years, it seemed that HIV was a virus that couldn’t be defeated. When it infected someone, it was only a matter of time before they developed AIDS, which would ultimately claim the patient’s life. For the latter part of the 20th century, that was typically the result of an infection.

There were antiviral medications patients could take, but they were numerous, and each came with side effects. This made it difficult for patients to stay on schedule, and eventually, the virus won out. That began to change in 2006 with the release of Atripla.

The medicine combined three antiretroviral drugs into a single dose, making it much easier and less damaging to take. In 2013, Stribild was released, and it combined four HIV antiretroviral medications into a single dose. Medicines and treatments continued to improve over the first two decades of the 21st century.

In 2017 and 2019, two new medications, Juluce and Dovato, were released, drastically improving treatment options for patients. Those two breakthrough drugs made it possible for every patient with HIV to be on an effective single-dose therapy, helping to reduce the number of HIV patients who develop AIDS while drastically reducing healthcare costs.

8 We Cracked The Human Genome

In 1990, an international scientific research project began the arduous task of cracking the human genome. The idea was to determine the base pairs that make up human DNA. These would then be mapped to better understand the human genome, which would aid in medical research and treatment.

In 2000, the Human Genome Project released a rough draft of the human genome. It was the first time in history that people could read a complete set of human genetic information. Three years later, a final draft was released as the program shut down, having delivered on its promise to map the three billion nucleotides contained in our DNA.

The finished project presented a mosaic of various individuals, and the data derived from the study has been instrumental in furthering our understanding of human genetics. The project made it possible to map an individual human genome easier and relatively inexpensively. This makes it possible to identify disease-causing mutations before they manifest in a patient.

Genomics advancements have furthered cancer research and treatment with the creation of more targeted drugs. Additionally, we now know the genetic basis of nearly 5,000 conditions, which is a significant improvement over the 60 we understood before we cracked the human genome.

7 Advances In Genetic Engineering

Science fiction tells us that genetic engineering results in the creation of monsters. In reality, it offers a means of correcting congenital defects and mutations that result in disease. The most well-known process for accomplishing this is CRISPR, or clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.

Essentially, CRISPR is a means of targeted editing a living organism’s genes. It can also be used to create agricultural products, genetically modified organisms, and control pests and pathogens. The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier for developing the technique.

The use of CRISPR genomic modification remains controversial, but it has been shown to be effective in various medical applications. Research in biomedicine shows that CRISPR can treat cancer, progeria, sickle cell disease, hemophilia, Huntington’s disease, and many more diseases resulting from a person’s genes.

In 2020, CRISPR was used effectively to treat glioblastoma and metastatic ovarian cancer. Further research and development will likely yield more advancements in treating various diseases, pathogens, and more. Research is being conducted worldwide to advance CRISPR into various therapies, suggesting it will become commonplace in the future.

6 Heart Disease Is No Longer A Death Sentence

Before the turn of the century, doctors could do very little for a patient who suffered a heart attack. Treatment typically consisted of providing a drip of morphine and lidocaine, which was believed to prevent irregular heartbeats. Most patients didn’t recover, but these days, deaths from heart disease have dropped by 40%.

A lot of that is due to the development of new medicines, including Lipitor, Mevacor, Crestor, and Simvastatin, which all work to slow the progression of atherosclerosis (plaque and fatty material buildup in the arteries). With those drugs, fewer patients are getting to the point of having a heart attack.

Still, heart attacks do occur, but when they do, they are treated very differently than they were in the past. Today, it’s all about speed. Once a patient arrives at the hospital, a clot can be destroyed with drugs. A genetically engineered tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) can bust up a clot, restoring blood flow.

Patients who require surgery are treated differently from the past, resulting in far fewer deaths from a cardiac infarction. The improvement stems from a 1998/2000 goal set by the American Heart Association, which wanted to reduce cardiac deaths by 25% by 2010. In 2008, the goal was achieved, and by 2020, a 40% reduction was reached.

5 Stem Cell Research & Application Made Leaps & Bounds

The use of stem cells in research isn’t anything new, as the technology to derive them from embryos was developed in the early 1980s. Since then, technology has advanced significantly, and medical research and treatment applications have hit the ground running in the 21st century.

Stem divide to form “daughter cells,” which can then turn into new stem cells or become any other specialized cell in the body. Under the right laboratory conditions (or in the body), stem cells can replace damaged cells. Potentially, they can be used to grow new organs.

The applications of the latter are promising, as any organs grown from a patient’s own cells wouldn’t require a lifetime of anti-rejection medication. Furthermore, the organ would theoretically be accepted without a problem, reducing the risk of transplantation, which is already a complex procedure.

Other applications include treating against disease and genetic conditions. In one study, manipulated bone marrow cells were transplanted into two seven-year-old boys. This stopped the progress of a fatal brain disease called adrenoleukodystrophy. Research into other applications is promising, suggesting stem cell therapy is truly the future of medicine.

4 Targeted Cancer Therapies Are Improving Survival Rates

For years, the primary method to treat a patient with cancer was through chemotherapy and radiation therapy. While these often worked, they did so by attacking cancer cells and healthy cells, which presents its own set of problems. Over the past decade, new techniques have been developed that make it possible to treat cancer more effectively.

Targeted therapies make it possible to eliminate many of the dangerous side effects of chemo and radiation therapies by going after the cancer cells without the danger of harming healthy cells. These targeted therapies work in several ways, but for the most part, they do the following:

-They identify and kill cancer cells directly.
-They interfere with the spread of cancerous cells, blocking the ones responsible for tumor growth.

The past decade has seen FDA approval for more than 25 new medicines that have shown an effectiveness in treating cancer patients through targeted therapy. The drugs are either small-molecule or monoclonal antibodies, which target specific cancer cells’ functions of how they divide, grow, and spread.

The technology behind targeted therapy is still relatively new, so advances are continuing around the world. It doesn’t mean we’ve beaten cancer, but we have advanced in the fight against one of humanity’s most insidious enemies.

3 Nanomedicine Left Science-Fiction Behind And Became A Reality

Sci-Fi has long been the domain of nanotechnology, and for a good reason. Programming machines smaller than cells is fantastical in nature, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. To be clear, that’s not what modern nanomedicine is, but the impact of what it has become suggests the future may be devoid of side effects.

Current nanomedicine is centered mainly around drug delivery. Instead of programming impossibly tiny robots, nanomedicine works by employing nanoparticles that are specifically engineered to target specific cells in targeted drug delivery. In short, it takes medicine directly to the affected cells, which reduces the total amount of drugs required.

Additionally, nanoparticles avoid healthy cells, which limits side effects. As the technology develops, it could reduce side effects in targeted therapies, improving drug effectiveness and survival rates.

Nanotechnology-based drugs are already on the market. Drugs like Abraxane, Onivyde, Rapamune, and others have improved anti-rejection and cancer treatments. Research is ongoing, and further advances in the treatment of HIV and cancer are looking to be the way of the future.

2 It Is Now Possible To Print Body Parts

Fabricating a body part from raw materials has long been the subject of science fiction, but that’s not the case any longer. Since 3D printing technology has advanced over the past two decades, new methods in creating implantable body parts have emerged. The current technology makes it possible to combine cell types with polymers to create living, functional tissues.

The technology behind this is still in the early phases of development, and it isn’t widely available at this time. Still, studies have made significant leaps and bounds via the technology. By 2020, researchers had successfully printed and implanted bionic eyes, hearts, skin, bionic ears, elastic bones, ovaries, and antibacterial teeth.

Because it’s still in the research and development phase, these items and organs have been successfully implanted into mice and other animals. Still, the technology is incredibly promising. As it develops, it should be possible to utilize a specialized 3D printer to recreate organs that can be implanted into patients.

Bioprinting and biotechnology companies are working hard to recreate everything from blood vessels to ears and whatever is needed in the future. It may eventually be possible to print a person’s heart to replace a damaged one without having to wait for months or even years on a transplant list.

1 RNA Vaccines Left The Lab And Took The Fight To The Virus

On their own, the vaccines developed to fight against COVID-19 are a fantastic medical achievement. Simply getting them through all the necessary red tape is noteworthy. Still, there’s far more going on behind the scenes than the average person knows because the technology that went into creating the vaccines represents a significant advancement.

The vaccines were made as quickly as they were, in part, because the research was already underway to develop the technology of RNA vaccines. Traditional vaccines work by placing an inactive version of the whole virus into the body. The immune system responds by learning how to attack and deal with it.

Another way to fight a virus is to deliver the nucleic acid that encodes the protein. The person’s immune system reacts by making the necessary protein to fight the virus. RNA vaccinations inject the nucleic acid that codes for the proteins that the cells need to make, delivering the “instructions” the body needs to fight off the virus . . . in other words, the vaccine changes the host’s DNA.

RNA vaccine technology is relatively new, and the COVID-19 vaccines are the first to make it out of the testing phase and into patients’ bodies. Thus far, it’s appeared successful, but it’s only the beginning. Further research and advancements in the technology could battle against viruses that have been difficult in the past, making RNA vaccines one of the most important medical advancements of the 21st century.