There are very clearly capabilities in medical tech that have not been fully explored due to compute/cost constraints and gaps in innovation. "Really smart PhDs have worked on this and come up with nothing" is a very unconvincing argument – you could say that about huge swathes of technological development.

Very smart people were trying and failing to effectively split the atom before some very well-funded and well-placed individuals made it happen. Loads of very smart people were working on AI before Transformers were developed and made LLMs viable / intelligent enough for real work. People trying and failing to do something hard doesn't mean it is impossible, it just means they've found 10,000 ways to not make a lightbulb.