Invisible Forces Jefferies

If you had lung cancer, you’d take one kind of drug. If you had liver cancer, you’d take another drug. Makes sense, right? But scientists have found another, more effective, more targeted way to treat cancer — one that you need a code to unlock. In this episode we look at the surprising history and the hopeful future of immunotherapy, and how the genetic code of cancer itself has been used to find a way to treat the disease.

Healthcare innovations aren’t just about drugs, but how care is delivered. But one of the fastest-growing areas of health care is focusing less on WHAT’s wrong with you, but WHERE the healing actually happens, and HOW doctors can deliver that care right to your home. In this episode we learn how a fitness craze from the 80’s is helping provide medical care right to a patient’s front door.

The discovery of DNA in the 1850s allowed us to see into the genetic code of individual humans. Now gene editing, a technique by which the gene or genes that make us susceptible to some diseases, allows that code to be rewritten. In this episode we look at the ways in which gene editing is being used to turn that century-old breakthrough into the future of medicine.

Thanks to modern medicine, we are living longer lives than ever before. But our longer lives have led to an increase in age-related degenerative illnesses like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s and ALS – neurological degenerative disorders that have proven very difficult to treat because of one of the strongest security systems in the human body: The Blood Brain Barrier. This episode looks at how an idea as old as the Trojan Horse could be used to finally break down that barrier for good.

We kick off this new season with a medical breakthrough story you might THINK you know, but isn't that straightforward. We dive into how the "speedy" development of mRNA vaccines is actually a story with decades of twists and turns. In this episode we look at the mRNA technology that is behind many COVID-19 vaccines, and how an idea that once looked like it was destined to fail got a new life just in time to save so many of ours.

Throughout this season, we are exploring some of the amazing medical breakthroughs that have changed lives – and continue to change what’s possible in the world of medicine. And all of this progress stems from investment: of time, of money, of research and ingenuity. In this episode, we’re looking at the common thread that links all the incredible stories we’ll be hearing over the coming season: that alchemy that brings about these life-saving innovations in healthcare.