Medicine Interviews

Phantom Limbs controlling Prosthetic Limbs

What happens if someone loses a body part? Can an artificial replacement be wired back up to the brain so it can be controlled? Todd Kuiken is pioneering this approach at the University of Chicago and Chris met up with him, together with his patient Glen Lehman, and surgeon Martin Baechler...Dr Martin Baechler, Dr Todd Kuiken (Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), Glen Lehman

Deep Brain Stimulation to Treat OCD

Doctors are reporting significant success in treating OCD by using deep brain stimulation, which is carried out by implanting electrodes into patients’ brains...Ben Greenburg, Brown Medical School

Giving a Voice to Silent Speech

By using electrodes to detect facial muscle movements when mouthing words silently, Michael Wand and colleagues have devised a system for silent speech recognition. The device could offer hope to patients who can move their mouths but not make sounds with their voices.Michael Wand, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

A Viral link for Throat and Mouth Cancer

Over 90% of Throat and Mouth cancers contain the genetic signature of the Human Papilloma Virus. Scientists think that people having oral sex is spreading the virus to the mouth...Maura Gillison, Ohio State University

Repairing our DNA

Scientists solve the structure of a protein pivotal for repairing damaged DNA. Due to various factors such as UV in sunlight, our DNA is constantly being damaged and organisms need to repair that damage on a regular basis in order to survive. There are many proteins involved in this repair, one of which is XPD, a protein that Jim Naismith at the University of St Andrews has been looking into.Jim Naismith, University of St Andrews

The proteins behind high blood pressure

New insights into protein shape may provide novel treatments for serious diseases of the circulatory system, including high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia.Robin Carroll, Emeritus Professor of Haematology from the University of Cambridge.

Gene Therapy to Treat a Defective Immune System

An important group of diseases are those that occur when a person inherits a defective form of an essential gene. Historically, there's been very little that could be done to cure people with this sort of problem. But now that's changing and a number of techniques exist to help people who suffer from some of these sorts of disorders. One of the pioneers in this field is Professor Adrian Thrasher. Professor Adrian Thrasher from Great Ormond Street Hospital

Using Genes to Fix Inborn Errors of Metabolism

Tim Cox explains how Gene therapy may help in the treatment of in-born errors of metabolism where part of a biochemical pathway is faulty or missing... Professor Tim Cox, Addenbrookes Hospital

Stem Cells Spontaneously Sorted for Sight

In a landmark breakthrough this week, Japanese scientists have used stem cells to grow a new retina in a dish, which could hold the key to one day producing a replacement retina for patients blinded by diseases or eye injuries...Dr Jane Sowden, University College London

COSMOS - Mobile Phones and Health

With mobile communications playing an increasingly major part in our lives, many people are worried about the potential health impacts of this technology. For this reason, a large study, called COSMOS, has been set up to track the ongoing health of 250,000 mobile phone users over a 30 year period...Professor Paul Elliott, Imperial College London

Watching the Worm May Turn Voters

In last year’s general elections, we had the exciting spectacle of a leaders debate, and to help us get an idea of how well the speakers were doing, we could watch “the worm” - a real-time computer generated graph that showed how much a sub set of the audience approved or disapproved of the comments the leaders were making. But could the worm itself, not just the speakers words, alter how we feel about the outcome?Dr Colin Davis, Royal Holloway University of London

Getting under the Skin of Melanoma

Melanoma is a form of skin cancer that's becoming increasingly common; in fact, the incidence of the disease has doubled in the last ten years. But now there's some good news, because, with the help of a tankful of fish, scientists at Harvard University have discovered a key gene that drives the disease and therefore could hold the key to new ways to treat it...Dr Leonard Zon, Harvard University

Aspirin as Preventative Medicine

Aspirin was touted originally as treatment for pain; but, 100 years on, we now know it’s much more powerful than that. Peter Rothwell is Oxford University’s Professor of Clinical Neurology and he’s with us to discuss what else aspirin can do...Peter Rothwell, University of Oxford

The History of Aspirin

On the 6th March 1899, the Beyer pharmaceutical company officially registered Aspirin as a trademark, following their chemist Felix Hoffman’s successful synthesis of a stable form of acetylsalicylic acid – the chemical name for aspirin - in 1897...Sarah Castor-Perry

Old Bones Help Treat Back Pain

It’s estimated that 80% of us will suffer from a bad back at some time in our lives, but the condition is hard to treat because the causes of it are so varied. Now, researchers have come up with a new way of testing out new treatments with a little help from our ancestors...Jane Reck, EPSRC; Dr. Ruth Wilcox, Leeds University; Dr. Kate Robson Brown, Bristol University

Naked Engineering - Measuring Physiotherapy Success

When muscles are injured or weakened, patients are usually referred to a physiotherapist for help, regaining their strength or improving their range of movement. But it can be difficult for the physio to accurately gauge the work load the patient can safely tolerate and the level of improvement that they've made. So now, physiotherapist Don Gatherer, who’s previously worked with the England Rugby Team and the British Olympic Squad, has come up with an elegantly simple solution...Don Gatherer, The Gatherer Partnership; Thea Maxfield

Scanning for Osteoporosis

Every year, about 75,000 people suffer a hip fracture in the UK and a majority of those will be down to the condition osteoporosis. Dr. Ken Poole is a rheumatologist at the University of Cambridge where he’s studying how bones weaken and change with age...Dr Ken Poole, Cambridge University

Strengthening your Skeleton

There are 206 bones in the average adult human, but how do our bones grow and develop and what controls how strong they become? We’re joined by Professor Tim Skerry from the Mellanby Centre for Bone Research at the University of Sheffield where he’s looking at the impacts of exercise on bone density and how bones respond to stress...Professor Tim Skerry, Sheffield University

Targeted Muscle Re-Innervation Pushes Prosthetic Performance

When someone loses a limb, although it's possible to replace the missing part with a prosthesis, making it move is another matter entirely. But a technique being pioneered at the University of Chicago could change that...Dr Todd Kuiken & Martin Baechler, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago; Sgt. Glen Lehman

Omega-3 Prevents Common Forms of Blindness

If you're a big fan of eating oily fish then you're probably doing your eye sight a big long term favour, because scientists at Harvard Medical School have discovered that the omega-3 fatty acids that are found in the fish can block the damage that's done to the retina by diseases like macular degeneration...Dr Lois Smith, Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital