Advances in Medical Research Stuckey et al. 2017 | 1:1 1 Introducing Advances in Medical Research Ruth Stuckey 1 , Sophie Domingues-Montanari 1* 1 Longdom Publishing, Barcelona, Spain Abstract Increasing life expectancy and decreasing infant mortality rates can be directly attributed to advances resulting from the exciting and evolving area of medical research. However, the global population continues to face a range of important health challenges including the increased incidence of age-related diseases, such as cancer, dementia, and stroke, as well as chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The new open-access peer-reviewed journal Advances in Medical Research aims to maximize the potential impact of wide-ranging medical research by making it freely and immediately available to a global audience and thus contribute to the continued advancement of medical research and improved global health. Citation: Stuckey R, Domingues-Montanari S (2017) Introducing Advances in Medical Research. Adv Med Res 1:1. doi:10.12715/amr.2017.1.1 Received: April 30, 2017; Accepted: May 30, 2017; Published: July 1, 2017 Copyright: © 2017 Stuckey et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. * Email: sdomingues@longdom.org Editorial Global life expectancy increased by 5 years between 2000 and 2015 to a global average of 71.4 years, with rates as high as 84 years in Japan. 1 These increases in life expectancy, as well as decreases in infant mortality rates – the global under-five mortality rate reduced by 3.9% between 2000 and 2015 1 – can be directly attributed to advances resulting from medical research. Moreover, dramatic improvements in nutrition and sanitation – in particular, access to clean water – together with the development of antibiotics and vaccines in the last few decades, have led to a change in the diseases that impact our lives: There has been a shift away from infectious and parasitic diseases as the leading causes of death and illness to non-communicable diseases and chronic conditions. 2 Among the major advances in medical research has been the development of antiretroviral therapy for HIV, a range of antibiotics for treating bacterial infections, and an extensive array of vaccines. One particularly significant development in vaccines, and indeed medicine, was the introduction of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in 2006, which could prevent up to 90% of cervical cancers, 3 as well as mouth, throat, and anal cancers. Other significant medical developments include blood transfusions and bone marrow and organ transplants, insulin treatment for diabetes, medication for high blood pressure, and increasingly successful treatments for cancer. Most medical developments have emerged as a result of new technologies, such as minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery, personal tracking/wearable devices, telemedicine initiatives, and 3D organ printing. Groups of scientists have used this last technique to successfully “print” spinal vertebrae, 4 skin, 5 blood vessels, 6 and even skeletal muscle. 7 What’s more, exciting emerging techniques such as stem cell therapy, gene therapy, cancer immunotherapy, mass sequencing technology, and CRISPR genome editing are paving the way towards a more individualized medicine in the future. However, higher life expectancy brings with it an aging global population and an increased incidence of age-related diseases, including cancer, dementia, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and arthritis. Furthermore, globalization and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle are leading to more people