Predicting the future of health care is a tricky business. At any point, there could be a big breakthrough in, say, cancer research, throwing the whole thing off. Or a new technology could come along in another sector, disrupting health care just as a side effect (much like the smartphone has already done). FutureMed, a weeklong program from Singularity University for doctors and others in the health care industry, looks at the ways that technology could change health care in the coming years. I spent a day at Singularity’s classroom (located at the NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley) to soak up some of the predictions. Here are some of the biggest takeaways.

Taking blood is a fine art. Even the most experienced practioner may require more than one stab to find a vein—seems only natural to wonder, might a robot do the job better? Mountain View’s Veebot thinks so. Veebot wants to take the art out of needlework with their robotic venipuncture machine.

In a presentation that seems ripped from the Atomic Age, Lockheed Skunkworks says it might be a decade away from producing a power plant based on compact fusion reactors. Unlike current nuclear reactors, all of which use fission, nuclear fusion does not easily produce materials that can be used in nuclear weapons. Fusion reactors also offer better containment, easier shutoff, greater energy efficiency, and less radioactive waste than their fissioning cousins. Of course, with something this promising, there has to be a catch.

An Australian court has ruled in favor of allowing a company to patent a human gene. Concerns have been voiced that allowing a company to monopolize genes will turn the human body into a commodity, and will adversely affect healthcare.

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the nation’s first “artificial retina,” a highly anticipated advance that could give limited vision to adults rendered blind by a rare genetic disorder.

It doesn’t matter if it’s called a BBQ, a grill or a Barbie; those char-grilled steaks leave a thick layer of grease and grime behind. And while cooking is fun, cleaning is not. What you need is a neat little R2D2 to scrub the filth away, leaving you to crack a beer and get ready to fire up the next BBQ. Enter the Grillbot, a cute, single button operated bot that perches on your grill and lives to clean. It works automatically on both gas and charcoal grills (hot or cold).

The next private cargo mission to the International Space Station is slated to blast off March 1, NASA announced today (Feb. 14).

In May 2009, DARPA initiated the Blue Angel effort to identify ongoing programs to assist in the Government-wide response to the H1N1 pandemic. The Blue Angel program is an accelerated and integrated effort to deliver effective interventions for pandemic influenza. Blue Angel brings together the following technologies to form a comprehensive approach in response to a pandemic influenza or manmade outbreak: Predicting Health and Disease (PHD), a program to predict and diagnose individuals exposed to influenza before they are symptomatic; Modular IMmune In vitro Constructs (MIMIC®), a program to identify safe and effective treatments in a test tube; and Accelerated Manufacture of Pharmaceuticals (AMP), a capability for rapidly mass producing low-cost, vaccine-grade recombinant protein that has the potential for scale up to tens of millions of doses per month. In response to the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic, Blue Angel programs are currently in a “live-fire test” to demonstrate a flexible and agile capability for the Defense Department to rapidly react and neutralize any natural or intentional pandemic disease.

The behavior of cells strongly depends on their environment. If they are to be researched an manipulated, it is crucial to embed them in suitable surroundings. Aleksandr Ovsianikov is developing a laser system, which allows living cells to be incorporated into intricate taylor-made structures, similar to biological tissue, in which cells are surrounded by the extracellular matrix. This technology is particularly important for artificially growing biotissue, for finding new drugs or for stem cell research. Ovsianikov has now been awarded the ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) of approximately 1.5 million Euros.

Thanks to the strange laws of quantum mechanics, quantum computers would be able to carry out certain computational tasks much faster than conventional computers. Among the most promising technologies for the construction of a quantum computer are systems of single atoms, confined in ion traps and manipulated with lasers.

Hybrid materials made of cardiac cells and carbon nanotubes might patch damaged hearts and provide muscle for robots made of living tissues.

When he was 17 years old, Zhao Bowen dropped out of Beijing’s most prestigious high school. Like many restless young people in China, he headed south to Shenzhen, the country’s factory capital, for a job. As a teenage science prodigy, however, he wasn’t bound for an assembly-line floor; instead, he was on his way to the world’s largest production center for DNA data. Now, a few years later, in a retrofitted shoe factory that is the headquarters of BGI-Shenzhen, the 21-year-old is orchestrating an effort to decipher the genetic makeup of some 2,000 people—more than 12 trillion DNA bases in all