8 Incredible Medical Breakthroughs That Are Right Around The Corner

85% of the kids unlucky enough to be diagnosed with a horrible cancer called lymphoblastic leukemia will undergo chemotherapy in an attempt to cure it, but this doesn't work for everyone.

A young girl called Emily Whitehead was diagnosed at the age of 5 and promptly began her first round of chemo, only to contract and infection and had to stop for fear that she would lose her legs. She was scheduled for a bone marrow transplant, but her cancer just kept coming back.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and her doctors suggested they try a brand new experimental treatment never before tried on a child.

Emily's blood was taken and the white blood cells extracted. The white blood cells were then genetically reprogrammed in the lab, using a modified HIV virus, so that they would attack Emily's cancer. The cells were then reinjected into the little girl.

Unfortunately, the cells also attacked the rest of Emily's body and she quickly became feverish to the point of hallucination. She was taken into intensive care and her parents were told that there was only a 1 in 1000 chance she would pull through.

Then, doctors gave Emily a drug usually used to treat rheumatoid arthritis drug that stopped her immune system from attacking itself, but still letting it go for the cancer. Emily slowly began to recover and finally woke up again on her 7th birthday.

The truly astonishing thing is that a week later, when her bone marrow was checked, Emily was found to be cancer free, and she still is to this day. Her doctor has been quoted as saying that he's "never seen anything like this".

Emily's success story has spurred on research in the potential for immunotherapy as a cancer treatment. Trials so far have been incredible, out of 25 children and 5 adults who underwent the same treatment, all of them had a complete remission with their cancer becoming completely undetectable, leading some experts to think that this could be what we have been searching for: A true cure.

Have you heard of a medical breakthrough that you are particularly excited about? Let us know in the comments.