Episode 6 – Cancer
8.30pm, RTE One – Monday 17th December
In Ireland, 40,000 people are diagnosed with Cancer every year and research into treatments and potential cures continues unabated. Aoibhinn talks to Averil Power, CEO of the Irish Cancer Society about what exactly cancer is and how we can reduce our risks of developing it, before meeting breast cancer survivor Dorothy Conaghan, who discusses the importance of regular screening, early diagnosis and continued research into new cancer treatments.
Kathriona meets Prof Martin O’Halloran and his team at NUI Galway who are researching microwave imaging technologies and meets Prof Michael Kerin from the National Breast Cancer Research Institute, to find out about clinical trials of an innovative device that could offer safer and less invasive breast cancer screening.
In part two, Jonathan meets Immunologist Luke O’Neill to find out about hugely promising treatments that use the body’s own immune system to identify and fight back against its own mutinous cancerous cells, and in London, he meets Prof Martin Pule, who is leading the largest European trials of this hugely promising new CAR-T cancer therapy at UCL.
Finally, in Weird Science, Fergus investigates how the tiny, naked, near-blind, subterranean mole rat could provide clues to future cancer treatments…