Alexis Carrel and the immortal chicken heart

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Philip Ball tells the story of Alexis Carrel, the French surgeon who worked to preserve life outside the body and create an immortal chicken heart in a dish. His quest was to renew ageing flesh, repair and rebuild our bodies and keep them healthy far beyond the usual human lifespan. In the early twentieth century his science was pioneering but his mission to achieve eternal life was underpinned by a dark and terrifying agenda. Carrel was a racist who advocated eugenics to preserve the superior civilisation of the West. Philip Ball discusses the history and cultural impact of the tissue culture techniques developed by Carrel with social historian Professor Hannah Landecker of the University of California at Los Angeles. And he finds out about the legacy of Carrel's research from Dr Madeline Lancaster of Cambridge University, one of the pioneers of the growth of brain organoids from stem cells; small clusters of neurons and other cells, rather like mini organs no bigger than a dried pea. Picture: Raw chicken heart, Credit: Arina_Bogachyova/Getty Images

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
0:05.2	I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy
0:10.1	podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really. Comedy is a bit of a dream job really.
0:13.0	Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,
0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
0:22.0	But you know, I also know that comedy is really
0:24.3	subjective and everyone has different tastes. So we've got a huge range of comedy on offer from
0:29.8	satire to silly, shocking to soothing, profound to just general pratting about.
0:35.0	So if you fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:40.0	I'm Philip Ball and today on Discovery from the BBC I'm here with another story from the history of science
0:47.0	today Alexis Carroll's quest to preserve life. New York in the roaring 20s, the city of glitz and glamour filled
1:00.8	with jazz joints like the cotton club
1:04.0	a place of opulence and optimism that even prohibition couldn't quell. But in a building on the upper east side of Manhattan, it's a different story. You'd be forgiven for thinking that it was some kind of monastic
1:26.4	ritual taking place in here as black-robed figures move carefully around carrying jars and dishes with great, almost reverential
1:36.3	care.
1:37.3	Yet this is no place of worship unless the God is scientific knowledge.
1:42.8	It is the Rockefeller Institute Hospital,
1:45.6	where scientists study disease and public health.
1:49.6	The black-robed figures are lab assistants,
1:52.4	and they are dressed that way to preserve
1:54.4	their delicate specimens from contamination and exposure to light. In the glass
1:59.8	dishes they carry pieces of disembodied chicken heart tissue pulse rhythmically.
	...

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