07/05/2016 Click

This week, a medical special with a professor plugging himself into

everything, and optimists -- octopus fights dementia and a cat that does

everything. Every single person

on the planet is different. Looks different,

likes different things, Those genes can also decide

which diseases each But of course, for most of history,

genetics was unknown territory. This is the Royal Society

of Medicine in central London. And this institution has been at

the forefront of promoting and the sharing of information

throughout the medical community. And in 2003, that community received

an explosion of information. The human genome project

was declared complete. And this knowledge paved the way

for a far deeper understanding of And these days, the talk is all

about personalised medicine. But how useful is this genetic

information at the moment? Well, after meeting a leading

geneticist in San Francisco, Jane decided to embark on

her own genetic journey of If you could unlock all

of the secrets of your health, how long you will live, what diseases

you were at risk of developing, Stanford's genetics

department is hoping that this It is studying 100 healthy people

and sequencing their DNA to see if they can predict when they will

get sick before they do. Leading

the research is Professor Michael I'm always keeping

my devices very well charged. He is a one-man tracking machine.

Along with sequencing his genome,

he wears nine different devices every day to monitor his health

outputs, including three smart I have a continual glucose monitor

that sits just on top of my skin, that continuously

measures my glucose levels. For Professor Snyder, the

experiment has already been a He found he had

a genetic predisposition to type 2 diabetes, despite showing no typical

signs of the condition. My genes predicted a number

of risks, And as we are actually doing all of

these medical analyses, we discovered that

my sugar which have been running on perfectly fine actually shot through

the roof, and basically to the point The professor keeps track

of his genome It looks complex,

but it is showing changes happening The outside affects my gene

representation of my genome, and all the different changes I have

relative to the inner line here. I think we will see a world where

this will be relayed to your smartphone and the information will

show up and get integrated. Quite frankly, it will go to your

physician as well. Inspired by Professor Snyder,

I signed up for 23 and Me. It is one of the better-known

and cheap services that offers you Rather than looking

at your whole genome, it looks of the ones that are significant,

using the latest research. Simply send a off sample,

and you're left with this. It is getting back 3 billion bits

of info, I received 100. These included risk factors

for indicators of Alzheimer's disease and ovarian and breast

cancer syndrome. The roles of 41 genetic variants

that produced different things from I was lucky to find out I didn't

have anything significant to report. In fact, the most interesting

thing I found out was I was I've changed my diet accordingly,

and it has made This small discovery increase

my appetite for more genetic After reading forums,

I discovered a site which said it can unlock more data

from 23 and Me for only $5. So I went for it,

and rather wished I hadn't. In ten minutes I was flooded with

information on 20,000 genomes. These are marked

as not said, good or bad. Instead of nothing to report, I seem

to have hundreds of bad genes, and I have a high risk of developing type

2 diabetes and various cancer. So I put my results to

a clinical geneticists. I'm absolutely baffled by the

information that is in this report. Do you find any

of this information useful to me? As a clinical geneticist who would

be looking at your risk of disease, I would say there is nothing

in here that we would find clinically actionable, in terms

of setting up screening or It may tell you some things

about where you are Adam explained the percentages

that scared me actually showed that these genes were fairly common

in the general population. It's also just one genetic aspect

out of 3 billion molecules that make up your genome, and

and that single molecule is not going to change that much about you

in this context. What do you think my GP would say

to me if I brought them this? I think your GP was struggle to find

anything in here that they would A more comprehensive insight

into our genes may come from the NHS's 100,000

Genome project. Participants include people with

rare diseases and their families. The NHS wants us to form the base

for a genomic medical service, potentially offering new and more

effective treatments and diagnoses. We will be in Rome -- world where

people get their gene is sequenced before they are born. Many times you

see mutations and you're not sure whether they are damaging not and

that's what makes it tricky. While it may be many years before

we can access useful information

about our genomes cheaply on a smartphone, a future when

genes play a greater role in the healthcare seems increasingly

possible. Well that was Jen,

and this is Tony Young who was the leader of innovation at the NHS.

You're also a surgeon. What do you make of giving what

seems a load of raw genetic data to Because Jen seemed quite freaked

out. I can understand that,

and there are more and more of these offerings coming

from the private sector around doing some element of your genomic

screening. And when you have that And the experience Jen had was one

of confusion, and there is But it's not just the public who is

confused. Many clinicians as well don't know

what to do with large swathes of And that is one of the reasons in

2012, our Prime Minister launched 100,000 Genome project, which was

a world-first, really. It was a larger-scale effort than the country

had undertaken to that point, to screen 100,000 whole genomes, and

through the population to look at both cancer risk and rare genetic

disorders, so we at the NHS could say, the results of confusing data

but actually, we're going to take Not relying on a commercial company

to give you some advice on the risk of diabetes or our son

is that may or may not be relevant. We can crack and solve some of the

big challenges we face and genomics is one of them.

We learned very recently that Google is using

its Deep Mind project, machine learning and artificial intelligence

systems, to analyse health data from the NHS patients.

The programme that you mentioned, with Deep Mind, is all

So patients are going to hospital and have an altered blood test or

a other test, but the early stages of that.

And you are still very well and your kidneys are very well,

But you're waiting for a human to look at that blood test result, and

the whole point of using a machine learning and artificial intelligence

is can we use this to actually pick that up much earlier to prevent

that person getting kidney damage and renal failure?

The data is there, but we're just not using it.

So we can deliver safer, better care.

And we have one of the biggest and best data sets but it's how we keep

it safe and secure. We have a national data Guardian to make sure

those things go forward and all data is encrypted so nope patient

identifiable information is shared. It's only the clinician who can know

it's their patient in front of them with that data and that's the key

thing. Hello. I would love to say it was the week that the inventor of

bitcoin was unmasked but after years, an Australian claim to offer

proof to three media outlets that he was Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious

inventor of the currency. That is until lots of people said he hadn't.

He has backed out from providing further evidence he said would

confirm his claim, saying sorry and goodbye. At IBM, they made a

functioning quantum processor available to the public online. Many

believe it will pave the way for next gen machines, capable of faster

calculations than those of today. Scared of going under the knife?

Have no fear, Robo surgeon is here. Researchers in America have built a

system that can autonomously so soft tissue. Having successfully operated

on a live papers-macro in testing, they say it can be safer and more

precise than a human surgeon. The winner for the tech PR Stunt of the

Week Award goes to "catterbox". Sick of cats sounding like cats? The

custom caller mixes me hows with various phrases giving would-be

purring felines a would-be voice. Town-macro. Wow! How purr-fectly

pointless. Over 47 million people in the world

are suffering from dementia, and an ageing population means that that

figure is only likely to increase. So I've been looking at

the technology, hoping to better the This week, Sea Hero launches.

Designed as a game to appeal to gamers,

beneath the surface is real science. While you may in think of

the main feature being memory loss, one of the earliest things to be

affected is actually spatial So after collecting data

about how healthy-minded players navigate the game, and comparing

that to how someone with dementia plays,

a benchmark can be created to both Just two minutes spent

on the app will generate the same amount of data as five

hours in a research lab. The design

of the game was built from the perspective of the scientists,

and what data they needed to understand how people would navigate

in 3-D space. This should provide not only a

standardised measure of quantifying someone's condition, but also

the ability to do so remotely. The key with this research is

understanding what goes wrong with So having understood that with this

experiment, and this big set of data,

we'll armed to go on and do new drug trials, for example, and to

investigate particular drugs and how they will have a good idea

as to how people navigate. The hope is that now in a crowded

market of smartphone games, the app will appeal to enough people

to make this mission possible. To bring them back to his beloved

Sea Hero. But for the millions this will be

too late for, there are other ways technology aims to promote

independent living for as long as possible. Like this remotely

accessible camera setup. I showed you a while ago and app that

re-purpose is smartphones and tablets to turn them into security

cameras, but there are many things that can be done with a setup like

that and one is to be able to monitor seniors. It's not just about

watching with a camera, which many may not want to have done to them,

but there are a lot of sensors that come with it. There are entry and

motion sensors, full sensors and even a smart pillbox. One of the

clever things is that it keeps track of someone's day to day habits so

that if they change, you will receive an alert that they could be

a problem. Of course, it big worry for loved ones is the risk of their

relative falling. So this aims to help. This pair of sensor embedded

insoles aims to provide smartphone alerts to chosen contacts should

wear red take a tumble. They are also providing feedback. Pressing

just here soars -- sort of feels like the vibration of an electric

toothbrush and that should help those with sensory issues called by

conditions like diabetes, MS or Parkinson's disease. For those whose

needs are more focused on keeping and engaged mind, this app provides

stimulating games for those with the early stages of dementia as well as

a place to log their life story, find exercise and nutrition tips and

a tool option to set reminders and to do lists.

Many diseases leave markers in the blood. Even detecting these can be

tricky and slow. Eight bayou marker may only be there in a tiny amount

and then your blood has to be collected and sent to a central

pathology lab. The whole thing can take hours or days. But here is

something that can take minutes. First, take some blood which may or

may not smell like blackcurrant cordial and dip in some of this

magic test strip. The blood creeps up the tiny capillaries ready for

testing. Pop it into the box, at a cheap smartphone fitted with an even

cheaper magnifying lens and an LED. Then add some testing liquids which

wash away the blood leaving only the bio-marker which glows. The brighter

the image the more the clinician needs to make a judgment on your

condition. This is another example of how smartphones, even low-cost

ones, can be used for diagnostics either in the developing world or

even in hospitals here, too. Let's look at heart attack. There is a

bio-marker adopted where heart attacks show chest pain. That is

responsible for around 1 million patients every year. Only a quarter

have a heart problem. Those patients had to stay overnight before the

test which takes so long. But with this, you can do things quicker.

This flu row strip has the same refractive index as water which

means it comes completely transparent when filled with a clear

liquid giving a brilliantly clearly quid of the offending bio-markers,

even at low levels. Crucially, it detects them at such low levels

which is what has been difficult up to now. Smartphone is a cheap auto

electronic component which can do pretty much the same job as other

systems and equipment sitting in pathology labs and that it is where

it becomes powerful. It is a level and miniaturised version of

sophisticated lab equipment -- a clever. Last week, we met Sir James

Dyson as he went to war on noisy, hot hairdryers with his own

invention. Now it's time to have a little more leisurely look around

his HQ. These are things that mean a lot to

me you. They mean something. A Harrier jump jet. I had a special

model built for me. It's heavy actually. That's pretty heavy. The

one out there is only five tonnes. It's very light. This one is carbon

fibre, one piece of carbon fibre than in the early 60s. There it was

in the 60s and it's a brilliant edition invention. That was my

favourite Walkman, an underwater one. I was a great fan in the early

days. That is a lovely Sony phone. A very good system. Nice and easy into

your pocket. A nice size. This was developed in the early 50s,

immediately after the war and it uses hydraulics for the steering and

brakes. Very high end cards are using the same system. It's taken

years to catch up. So the thing that attracts you is the genius in

engineering? Yes, the genius in that. What would you say your role

is in now? I can't see you taking a hands-off role. No, I was with the

engineers working on new product so I don't build prototype --

prototypes any more but the engineers do. We discuss the design

and discuss new technology and how to use it. How many other new ideas

of yours? Very few because I have lots of bright young people with the

average age of 26 and they are far cleverer than I am. I am like an old

tutor going around encouraging them. The vacuum cleaner, I built over

5000 prototypes before I got it right. How many? 5100 plus. How long

did it take? Three years. I was doing to a day or something like

that and testing them then building another one and another one. I was

covered in dust but enjoying myself enormously. I asked Twitter what

Twitter would like to ask you. My favourite for the hand-held vacuum

cleaner, are there plans to bring out the cowboy style holster? If

that's what everyone wants, we'll do a holster. More seriously, what

inspired you to become an engineer and what ideas inspire you now? I

started off being a designer and I realised that just designing the

outside of a problem -- product was deeply unsatisfying. You want to

understand how its work, how it's made. I wanted to be involved in the

whole thing. I went off to an engineering company and it took

seven years to learn engineering. Did want to be an engineer at the

beginning. I discovered I had to be and then I enjoyed it. What would

you say to the next generation of engineers to inspire them if they're

trying to decide whether to carry on with it? It's a good point because

we're not producing enough engineers. We need more. I would say

that engineering is exciting and fulfilling and an -- engineers are

the happiest people. Is exciting even though you have failure. You

have exciting breakthroughs and you're making real things for people

and satisfying their needs. Thanks for having us. Thank you. That was

Sir James Dyson. Who knows what secrets are lurking in that

building? That if it from us. Thanks for watching and we'll see you soon.