Conventional health treatment pathways are reaching an inflexion point. The fusion of medicine with nanotechnology, biological engineering, IT and artificial intelligence will soon revolutionise mankind’s battle with disease.

Powerful emerging technologies will enable early detection and personalised treatment and monitoring of cancer and other diseases. And personalised therapeutic vaccines (tailored to the immune systems of patients) will make genuine preventative healthcare a routine procedure.

In this new era, traditional ‘test-treat-cure’ models of health care will face unprecedented technological disruption. Medical professionals and policymakers are yet to properly grasp what the ramifications will be for healthcare in Australia and globally.

The implications both for patients and health systems will be the focus of this panel discussion.