From a new WBUR interview with cell-phone inventor Martin Cooper, who was inspired to his invention by Star Trek communicators, a passage about his very hopeful prognostication for the future of the cell:

“Cooper sees other revolutions coming as a result of cell phone technology.

‘Just suppose that you could do a physical examination, not every year, which people do and which is almost worthless, but every minute, because you’re connected, and because we have devices that you can put on your body that measure virtually everything on your body. If you could be sensing your body all the time and anticipate a disease before it happens,’ Cooper said.

A computer would process the data, Cooper said, and detect illness and disease before they took hold. It could then instruct a patient on what to do to stop the illness.

‘If you extrapolate that thought, we are going to eliminate the concept of disease. And I think that’s going to happen within the next generation or two,’ he said.

In addition to health care, he sees changes in education, as learning tools become more mobile and students are able to spend more time out in the world learning.

‘If we don’t blow ourselves up, this is going to be a really wonderful world,’ Cooper said.”