At the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in May, results for a new pancreatic cancer pill received a 42s standing ovation, one of a string of medical advances this year built on gene editing and AI. An X user who goes by Mgoes posted on 27 October listing 10 advances, writing the news was “sitting in press releases and almost nobody reads them”; two days later Elon Musk shared the post. The account is pseudonymous, lists no scientific credentials and describes its owner as an investor in SuperHuman Fund, a “human enhancement” venture fund that co-hosts the Accelerate Bio podcast and has backed at least one guest’s company. Not every item on the list is a breakthrough, and only about half rely on gene editing or AI. Crispr-Cas9 became a medicine in late 2023, when UK and US regulators cleared Casgevy for sickle cell disease. Revolution Medicines’ daraxonrasib roughly doubled median survival in a trial of 500 patients whose cancer had spread despite earlier treatment: 13.2 months, against 6.7 months on chemotherapy, and the US Food and Drug Administration approved it as Rasonque in August. In April, Intellia Therapeutics said a single infusion of its CRISPR treatment, lonvo-z, cut attacks of hereditary angioedema by 87% compared with a placebo, and 62% of patients were attack-free and needed no other treatment for six months.