The Life Scientific: Cath Noakes
Discovery
BBC
4.3 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 March 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Professor Cath Noakes studies how air moves and the infection risk associated with different ventilation systems. Early in the pandemic, she was invited to join the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, SAGE and asked to study the transmission routes for Covid-19. In July, together with many other scientists, she urged governments around the world and the World Health Organisation to recognise that Covid-19 could be transmitted in tiny particles in the air, even if the risk of getting infected in this way was much smaller than the risk from larger particles that travel less far. Her research highlights the importance of good ventilation as a way to stop the spread of infection in indoor environments. Being in a well ventilated space can reduce the risk of inhaling tiny airborne pathogens by 70%. Cath talks to Jim Al-Khalili about her journey from studying industrial processes to infection risk, her work on the airborne transmission of diseases and the challenge of designing buildings that are both well ventilated and energy efficient.
Producer: Anna Buckley
Photo credit: University of Leeds
Transcript
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| 0:32.2 | This is Discovery from the BBC. |
| 0:34.7 | I'm Jamele Kilele and in today's programme, I'm in conversation with a leading scientist |
| 0:39.8 | about their life and research. |
| 0:41.7 | Welcome to the Life Scientific. |
| 0:44.4 | My guest today studies how air moves in confined spaces. |
| 0:49.0 | She's an expert on indoor ventilation, a rather niche interest you might think, |
| 0:53.7 | but her knowledge and expertise has been in very high demand ever since the arrival of COVID-19. |
| 0:59.8 | Catherine Noakes trained as an engineer and started her career studying industrial processes, |
| 1:06.1 | but she's been thinking about how to reduce the risk of infection from tiny airborne pathogens |
| 1:11.6 | for the best part of two decades now. |
| 1:14.3 | And in an open letter signed by 239 scientists and published in the journal Clinical Infectious |
| 1:20.1 | Diseases in early July, she called on governments and the World Health Organization to recognise |
| 1:26.6 | airborne transmission of COVID-19 and the importance of ventilation as a mitigation measure. |
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