Trauma
The world's biggest killer, outstripping Aids, cancer and heart disease combined. What goes on in the body after exposure to trauma, such as a car crash. Recent advances in trauma medicine have been driven by a greater understanding of how the body tries to preserve itself after an injury.
Foreign Bodies
In the world of transplant, the body is the enemy. Primed to destroy all invaders, no matter how welcome, the ever-vigilant immune system homes in on immediately transplanted organs, targeting them for destruction. Researchers around the world are constantly looking for ways to trick the body into accepting — and even adopting — a foreign organ as its own.
Self-repair
Medical pioneers are beginning to harness our body's incredible ability for self-repair, to grow "spare" organs for ourselves that will be identical replacements for parts we wear out. This episode follows the work of scientists in using the body's genes and hormones to prompt it to grow new blood vessels, tissues and even organs.
Killers into Cures
The real plague of the 21st century will be allergies and auto-immunity diseases, caused by too little exposure to infection. In the war between humans and microbes, the microbes are clearly winning, their resistance becoming ever-stronger.
The Alien Within
Cancer is the disease of the healthy society. Using specialised filming techniques, see how cancer lives inside us like a parasite, how it grows its own life support system and how it travels through the body searching for new sites before eventually overwhelming its host.
The Baby Builders
Advances in reproductive technology and genetics mean diseases before birth could be screened out and our genetic make-up fundamentally altered.
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