ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

On Friday 14 October, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ World News Horizons series continues with an episode looking at the development of health technologies and personalised medicine in the UK. This second episode in the series looks at how the increasing ageing global population is putting additional stress on healthcare, and the race to develop a new generation of personalised medicine. Β 

Horizons presenter, Adam Shaw examines how UK technology, developed for the world of Formula One racing, is being used to drive future medical applications and patient monitoring. Β 

Tracey Hobbs, Horizons Series Producer says, Tracey Hobbs, Horizons Series Producer says, β€œI’ve always loved motor sport, especially Formula One, but was fascinated to discover how some of the technologies developed for the sport lend themselves to helping improve the performance of our bodies through personalised patient monitoring.”

At Imperial College London, Adam enters the world of Nanotechnology and Genome sequencing. He also meets Professor Kevin Warwick, who works in Cybernetics at Reading University, who is working on the next generation of prosthetic limbs and brain stimulation to tackle dementia and Alzheimer’s.Β  He’s taken his research to the extreme by having a chip implanted into his arm which links his nervous system to a computer.

Adam also speaks to a number of experts from across England including Geoff McGrath, Managing Director, at McLaren Applied Technologies; Professor Tim Aitman, Consultant Physician, at Imperial Academic Health Sciences Centre; Dr Alex Porter at the Department for Material Science, Imperial College, London and Lord Darzi, Chairman, at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, also based at Imperial College, London.

Dr Venki Ramakrishnan, Senior Scientist, at the Medical Research Council and Nobel Prize winning Chemist says, β€œAs a result of DNA sequencing technology becoming cheaper, we may see the era of personalised genomes where every person can have their genome sequenced and, because we all respond differently to different drugs, we may have personalised medicine. But more importantly it might tell us what weβ€˜re at risk of and it might allow us to modify our lifestyle to account for those risks.”

The ten-part second series of Horizons travels across the globe to destinations including Brazil, China, Israel and Turkey to find out about the business ideas that could shape mankind's future.

The Horizons series, sponsored by DuPont, airs weekly on Fridays at 23:30, Saturdays at 02:30 and 15:30, and Sunday’s at 9:30 and 21:30 (all times GMT). For programme highlights and an insight into the future of global business visit www.horizonsbusiness.com. For all the latest news, behind-the-scenes pictures/videos and updates from Adam Shaw please follow at facebook.com/horizonsTVseries and/or on twitter at @horizonsbiz.

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