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The first decade of the 21st century brought a number of discoveries, mistakes and medical advances that influenced medicine from the patient’s bedside to the medicine cabinet.

Dr. John Sulston, Director of the Sanger Centre near Cambridge takes part in the Human Genome Project.

(Ho New/Reuters)

In some cases, these advances changed deeply rooted beliefs in medicine. In others, they opened up possibilities beyond what doctors thought was possible years ago.

ABC News, in collaboration with MedPage Today, reached out to more than 800 specialists for their suggestions. More than 125 experts in various fields and specialties responded. Their suggestions were then sent to the American Association for the History of Medicine, which narrowed the pool down to an authoritative list of 10 medical advances this decade that have had the most impact.

1. Human Genome Discoveries Reach the Bedside

In 2000, scientists in California released a rough draft of the human genome to the public on the Internet. For the first time, the world could download and read the complete set of human genetic information and begin to discover what our roughly 23,000 genes do.

Mapping the human genome was a race involving time and money in the 1990s, with two competitors at the lead — the government-funded Human Genome Project, which completed its task in 15 years using more than $3 billion in taxpayer money, and a private company, Celera Genomics, which used $100 million and took less than a decade.

Both groups announced drafts of the human genome at a June 26, 2000 press conference with then president Bill Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In 2003, a “final” draft was released by researchers, and in 2007 more updates to the genome were published by Dr. Craig Venter, the chief scientist behind Celera Genomics.

“It’s the precursor for lots of medical advances,” said Venter, now chairman and president of the non-profit J. Craig Venter Institute.

“That was absolutely the hope for it, that it will begin to change things,” said Venter, who was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Obama last month for his work on the human genome.

At the moment, Venter sees more medical potential than medical achievements in genomic research. But when those advances do come, Venter predicted it will help preventative medicine and cut our rapidly accelerating medical costs from increasingly expensive treatments.

“I think the biggest area of the future will be preventive medicine,” said Venter. “By understanding the genetic causes and links to disease, we can spend more and more attention on preventing disease.”

For example, Venter said doctors have developed a genetic test for a gene associated with prostate cancer, “and there’s a drug available that greatly lowers the risk for prostate cancer in the future.”

Unknown Future Ahead With Genome Mapped

“The potential here is enormous and we’re only at the very beginning stages,” said Keith-Thomas Ayoob, associate professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. “Last century, DNA was discovered. Now, we have the protein-coding sequence for our 23,000-plus genes.

“There’s incredible potential here — for good and bad, but at least it’s got the potential for good,” said Ayoob.

Many have voiced concerns about individuals’ genetic privacy if genome sequencing becomes cheaper, widely accessible and popular. But others say the benefits are too much to ignore.

Dr. Margit Burmeister, professor of psychiatry and human genetics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said our genes, for example, already have changed the way we treat lung cancer by tailoring medicine to the individual.

“Drugs like Iressa [a lung cancer drug] should only be given to people with certain mutations,” Burmeister said. “This is really only the start, and my prediction is that in the next 10 years, this will become a lot more important.”

“It’s hard to imaging areas of society that aren’t touched by it,” said Venter.