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Artificial Blood Jul 09, 2012

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Could creating "blood" in the laboratory make infections passed on through blood transfusions a thing of the past? Vivienne Parry investigates.

The drive behind the quest for creating a blood substitute was originally from the US Military - during the Vietnam War a clean, reliable and portable alternative to donor blood would have helped to save many lives.

Donated blood can only be kept for a limited time, needs refrigerating and has to be cross matched according to which ABO group people belong to. The "universal donor" - O negative blood - can be used on accident victims before a match is found. But it's in very short supply and often many units of blood are required.

The history of creating blood has had a chequered past - with some products abandoned because of side effects and others proving too costly to produce. One analysis of clinical trials on blood substitutes in 2008 revealed a higher incidence of heart attacks in patients who'd been given them, compared with those who received human blood.

Some scientists have tried using the pigment found in oxygen-carrying red blood cells - haemoglobin. This molecule is normally packed into the cells, so that it can "grab" oxygen breathed in by the lungs and release it in minute capillaries, providing the body with the oxygen needed to surivive. But "free" haemoglobin is toxic to the body - presenting researchers with a technical challenge.

Another approach has been to grow human red blood cells from cells extracted from umbilical cords - known as blood pharming. But with the average blood transfusion containing 2.5 million million red blood cells the scale of production would have to be enormous. A special cocktail of growth factors coax these stem cells into becoming red blood cells just like those the body produces naturally.

(Image: A syringe filled with blood)

Gene Therapy Jul 02, 2012

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Gene therapy - repairing malfunctioning cells by mending their DNA - offers an elegant solution to diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, caused by a single flawed gene.

It's a very simple concept to describe - simply insert a 'normal' gene to do the job - but it's this process, the delivery of the gene, that's proving to be so difficult and time consuming. Since the first human study began in 1990 the field has struggled with various technical challenges and set-backs.

But over a decade on, researchers are beginning to report successes in treating several devastating diseases. Geoff Watts finds out about some of the new techniques for gene therapy, and discovers how these are now being used in a trial of a new method of gene therapy for cystic fibrosis.

Twelve years ago, a group of scientists from Imperial College in London, Oxford and Edinburgh formed the Cystic Fibrosis Gene Therapy Consortium. This year they started the world's biggest trial of gene therapy for cystic fibrosis.

Funded by the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, the Medical Research Council and The National Institute for Health Research , the trial will treat 120 CF patients with either a placebo or a healthy copy of the gene that causes CF. The gene is wrapped up in a fat globule, or liposome and delivered in aerosol form directly to the lungs.

(Image: Eric Alton)

Legacy Of Alan Turing - Episode Two Jun 25, 2012

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Alan Turing, born 23 June 1912, is famous for his key role in breaking German codes in World War II. But for mathematicians, his greatest work was on the invention of the computer.

Alan Turing's brilliance at maths was spectacular. Aged 22, just a year after his graduation, he was elected a fellow of King's College Cambridge. And it was just a year after that, that he turned his attention to problems in the foundations of mathematics and ended up showing that a simple machine, set up to read and write numbers and to run a few basic functions, could in principle do all the things that are do-able in mathematics. His 'universal' machine was just a concept - a paper tape that could be read, interpreted and acted on robotically. But the concept was profound.

World War II shortly afterwards took Turing's talents into other directions, but even while designing machines at Bletchley Park to break the German Enigma codes, he was wondering how much more a computing machine might do - play chess for example.

And although the war work might have delayed Turing's academic work, it greatly accelerated progress in electronics, so that in 1945 he returned to his first love, creating a complete design for what he expected to be the world's first fully programmable computer, the National Physical Laboratory's ACE - the Automatic Computing Engine. In the end, beset by hesitation and bureaucratic delays, the ACE was overtaken by a rival team in Manchester, whose Small Scale Experimental Machine first ran on 21 June 1948. But the Manchester Baby as it became known, fulfilled the requirements laid down in Turing's seminal 1936 paper, and in a handful of instructions had the power to do any kind of maths or data processing, like a computer of today does.

Turing soon joined the Manchester team, and again with remarkable prescience started work on artificial intelligence, wondering whether electronic machines could be programmed not just to do maths, but to think in the way human minds do - a hot topic of debate even now.

Those explorations were cut short by his death in 1954, two years after he’d been prosecuted for his homosexuality. His death at a time when official secrecy still hid his code-breaking work, and when the history of computing was already being written meant that few appreciated his central role in today's dominant industry. But some enthusiasts hope they can write him back in where he belongs.

In this second of two episodes devoted to Turing, the BBC's Roland Pease follows the events following Turing's design for the ACE machine at NPL, and the race against the Baby Computer in Manchester.

(Image: Alan Turing. Credit: Bill Sanderson/Science Photo Library)

Legacy Of Alan Turing - Episode One Jun 18, 2012

Show notes

Alan Turing - born a hundred years ago on June 23 - is most famous for his key role in breaking German codes in World War II. But for mathematicians, his greatest work was on the invention of the computer.

Discovery explores the legacy of the great man with a two-part special.

His 'universal' machine was just a concept - a paper tape that could be read, interpreted and acted on robotically. But the concept was profound.

In the end, beset by hesitation and bureaucratic delays, the ACE was overtaken by a rival team in Manchester, whose Small Scale Experimental Machine first ran on June 21 1948. But the Manchester Baby, as it became known, fulfilled the requirements laid down in Turing's seminal 1936 paper, and in a handful of instructions had the power to do any kind of maths, or data processing, like a computer of today does.

Those explorations were cut short by his suicide in 1954, following prosecution for his homosexuality. His death at a time when official secrecy still hid his code-breaking work, and when the history of computing was already being written meant that few appreciated his central role in today's dominant industry. But some enthusiasts hope they can write him back in where he belongs.

In this first of two episodes devoted to Turing, producer Roland Pease follows the events leading up to Turing’s design for the ACE machine at NPL.

(Image: Alan Turing. Credit: Bill Sanderson/Science Photo Library)

Flu Jun 11, 2012

Show notes

Two teams of virologists found themselves at the heart of bioterrorism maelstrom late last year when their studies on mutant bird flu were suppressed by US authorities.

While security experts feared the reports were recipes for bioweapons of mass destruction, the researchers argued they held important lessons for the threat of natural flu pandemics developing in the wild.

Now the authorities have backed down and the reports have been released. Kevin Fong hears how tiny variations in the genes of bird flu can completely change the behaviour of the pathogens and he asks whether deliberate genetic manipulation in the lab can replicate the natural genetic variations occurring in farms around the world.

In 2009, the new strain of H1N1 flu emerged from a few villages in Mexico to infect the world in weeks. What experts fear is that a simple genetic change to H5N1 bird flu could allow it to spread as fast, but with far deadlier consequences. They argue that by identifying dangerous variants in the lab first, we'd be better prepared with vaccines ahead of the danger.

Producer Roland Pease.

(Image: A coloured transmission electron micrograph of the H5N1 virus, better known as bird flu. Credit: Science Photo Library)

Transit of Venus 2012 Jun 05, 2012

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Astronomer Marek Kukula from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich explores the scientific implications of the forthcoming transit of Venus across the face of the Sun, a rare astronomical event that will not occur again until 2117.

Previous transits have helped establish fundamental facts about our solar system, including the distance and relative positions of all the planets that orbit our sun.

But now, the forthcoming transit in June 2012, the last this century, will help planet hunters searching for other worlds across the galaxy (exo-planets).

As Marek discovers, technology now makes it possible to pinpoint not only a planet's mass, size, and distance from its star but we can also establish whether it has an atmosphere and what that atmosphere might consist of and therefore whether it could theoretically support life.

Thanks to the next transit event, the search for another Earth has taken a bold step forward.

(Image: Venus (black dot) is silhouetted as it orbits between the Sun and the Earth during the transit of Venus seen from Bangkok on 6 June 6 2012. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

28/05/2012 GMT May 28, 2012

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Professor Jim al-Khalili talks to Cern physicist Tejinder Virdee, about the search for the elusive Higgs boson, also known as the "God particle".

Last December, scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider caught a tantalising glimpse of the Higgs; but they need more data to be sure of its existence.

Twenty years ago, Tejinder set about building a detector within the Large Hadron Collider that's capable of taking 40 million phenomenally detailed images every second.

Finding the Higgs will validate everything physicists think they know about the very nature of the universe: not finding it, will force them back to the drawing board.

By the end of the year, we should know one way or the other.

Hurricane Rash May 21, 2012

Show notes

Plastic Surgery does not always have a good press, more often associated with the excesses of Hollywood.

But the birth of modern day reconstruction has far nobler roots.

Dr Kevin Fong looks at the surprising, and heroic origins of the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery.

It is a field that was born in response to the great air-battles of World War II, and the development of a new fighter plane - the Hawker Hurricane - that left its legacy not just in terms of success in the air, but in the devastating injuries caused to many of the airmen who flew them.

He looks at the work of pioneering surgeon Archie McIndoe and his brave airmen "guineapigs" who underwent months, if not years, of painful surgery that led to the birth of modern day reconstructive surgery.

The Science of Morality May 14, 2012

Show notes

How fixed are our moral beliefs? Can these beliefs be reduced to neurochemistry?

While we may believe that our moral principles are rigid and based on rational motives, psychological and neuroscientific research is starting to demonstrate that this might not actually be the case.

In this edition of Discovery, Dr Carinne Piekema investigates how scientific studies are starting to shed light on how our social behaviour is affected by our environment and neurochemistry.

She discusses with Carol Dweck about how people's moral opinions can be modified through behavioural techniques, and with Molly Crockett and Paul Zak about how similar effects can be brought about by directly altering brain chemistry.

While this knowledge might have future benefits, the ability to alter people's behaviour and attitudes towards others also raises potential ethical issues.

In the final part, Carinne talks with neuroethicist Neil Levy who invites us to consider the philosophical questions raised by such advances.

1000 Days: A Legacy of Life May 07, 2012

Show notes

Imagine if your health as an adult is partly determined by the nutrition and environment you were exposed to during a critical period of development - the first 1000 days of life.

A strong body of scientific evidence supports this explosive idea, and is gradually turning medical thinking on its head.

To understand the cause of chronic adult disease, including ageing, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, obesity and lung problems we need to look much further back than adult lifestyle – but to the first 1000 days.

Dr Mark Porter investigates this influential idea and meets the world experts leading this burgeoning field of research.

He talks to David Barker, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Southampton and the man behind the Barker Theory.

This links the risk of developing illnesses in adult life to poor nutrition in the womb – typically evident when a baby is born underweight.

Low birth weight is associated with a number of long term health problems in adults, ranging from osteoporosis to stroke.

Chronic disease may be expressions of key developments in the womb. "That does not mean you are doomed, it means you are vulnerable" explains Professor David Barker.

Researchers have studied the Dutch Famine or 'Hunger Winter' at the end of the World War II where babies developing in the womb were exposed to severe conditions.

Nearly 70 years later, Tessa Roseboom, a researcher at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam, has found long term health risks for Dutch adults who were in the womb during that difficult winter.

In recognising the long term impact of events during these early critical phases of development, the medical profession could dramatically change its approach to disease prevention.

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