Alzheimers research, Lucy in the Scanner, Smart bandages, From supernovae to Hollywood
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2016
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Alzheimers disease is now the leading cause of death in the UK, but there are as yet no treatments to halt or reverse it. There was huge disappointment last week when the drug company Eli Lilly announced that a large, phase 3 clinical trial had failed to show any benefit to mild dementia sufferers from its antibody therapy, solanezumab. So where does this leave our basic understanding of biology of Alzheimers disease and how we might most effectively treat or cure it? Adam Rutherford talks to Alzheimers researcher Tara Spires-Jones of the University of Edinburgh.
Also in the programme: The skeleton of the world's most famous fossil, Lucy, has received a body scan which revealed she spent a considerable portion of her life climbing trees. Researchers at the University of Bath are making smart bandages for burns patients which glow when their wounds become infected. Adam also talks to the astrophysicist who gave up studying exploding stars to apply his maths to Hollywood stars in the movie business.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello you this is the podcast version of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4 first broadcast on the 1st of December 2016 |
| 0:07.4 | there's tons of science coming on Radio 4 in the next few weeks a new series of the curious cases of Rutherford and Frye starts next week |
| 0:14.4 | all in the mind is back on the air the infinite monkey cage Christmas special is |
| 0:17.4 | brewing and a new series of science stories honestly we do try to spoil you |
| 0:22.4 | here's this week's dose. |
| 0:24.0 | It's a big climb up our family tree this week all the way to Lucy, the most famous 3.2 million year old fossil. |
| 0:31.0 | Her reputation precedes her. Almost every school child |
| 0:34.6 | around has heard about Lucy and for us to do these scans it was both humbling |
| 0:39.2 | and fun to do some science with this famous fossil that had never been done before. |
| 0:44.0 | Putting her in the scanner has revealed that Lucy was up trees as well as on two feet down on the ground. |
| 0:49.6 | We've got the smart bandage that literally glows when your wound is infected underneath. |
| 0:55.4 | And we're talking to the supernova researcher who's helping decide what stars you see |
| 0:59.4 | in the movies and what films actually get made. |
| 1:03.0 | But first, attempts to treat Alzheimer's disease suffered a big blow last week |
| 1:07.5 | with the announcement of a failed drug trial. |
| 1:10.0 | Solonazomab had shown huge promise in earlier trials for dealing with some of the abnormal |
| 1:15.2 | formations in the brains of people with Alzheimer's. |
| 1:18.5 | But the latest results from the pharmaceutical company Eli Lillie show the drug has no significant benefits to memory |
| 1:24.7 | when compared with the placebo taken by some patients with mild dementia. |
| 1:29.1 | The outcome of this trial had been eagerly anticipated by scientists, doctors and patients alike. |
| 1:35.6 | So what does this mean for the prospects of treating Alzheimer's disease? |
| 1:39.4 | Currently there is no effective treatment or cure. In 2015 there are approximately 48 million people |
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