:01:05. > :01:08.On tonight's show, Jem discovers how diamonds are going to change
:01:08. > :01:15.our world, and then, as only Jem can, he tries to make a diamond for
:01:15. > :01:21.himself. Do I let it go further with the chances of bigger diamonds,
:01:22. > :01:25.or do I quit now before I lose everything? And Dallas gets to
:01:25. > :01:30.grips with a disease that affects one in three of us, cancer, and he
:01:30. > :01:33.meets the team taking a crucial step in the race to find a cure.
:01:33. > :01:37.Are we ever going to get zero people dying from breast cancer? Is
:01:37. > :01:43.it going to happen in our lifetime? In my career. That's Bang Goes The
:01:43. > :01:46.Theory, revealing your world with a bang. Hello, and welcome. Bang is
:01:46. > :01:48.back, and for the next eight weeks we're going to bring you all the
:01:48. > :01:53.latest scientific research, and we'll also be demo-ing the
:01:53. > :01:56.technology that's about to change our lives, right here on BBC One.
:01:56. > :01:59.That's right, we're going to be covering a huge range of topics,
:01:59. > :02:02.everything from the nasty creatures that visit us in our beds, to how
:02:02. > :02:07.to supercharge your memory so you'll never lose your keys or
:02:07. > :02:10.forget a name. But first this, diamonds. They used to be a girl's
:02:10. > :02:12.best friend. They still are, my love. Not if you're cutting through
:02:12. > :02:18.concrete. Diamond-tipped cutting discs are very much a bloke's best
:02:18. > :02:21.friend. But slicing stonework and looking pretty is a bit old hat.
:02:21. > :02:23.It's all the other astonishing properties of diamond that make
:02:23. > :02:29.them set to revolutionise things as diverse as hip replacements and
:02:29. > :02:36.quantum computers. Diamonds, generally famous for three things,
:02:36. > :02:45.being very beautiful, very expensive, and very, very hard. But
:02:45. > :02:49.it turns out they also have a whole load of extraordinary properties.
:02:49. > :02:53.Some of which we're only just discovering. I never knew that
:02:53. > :02:58.diamonds could glow in the dark. This is just one of the properties
:02:58. > :03:01.that mean diamonds are staying at the cutting edge of technology. So
:03:01. > :03:04.what makes diamonds so special? Although they may look very
:03:04. > :03:11.different, this is actually made of the same stuff as the graphite in
:03:11. > :03:17.this pencil, and even the charcoal from a barbecue. They're all
:03:17. > :03:23.basically carbon. Which means diamonds are probably not forever.
:03:23. > :03:26.They'll burn, just like charcoal. So, with a blowtorch, the tiniest
:03:26. > :03:35.high street diamond... And some liquid oxygen for encouragement, I
:03:35. > :03:41.can easily cause a little diamond inferno. Pretty, but not the
:03:41. > :03:47.cheapest fossil fuel. It's completely gone. It was a diamond,
:03:47. > :03:52.it's now just carbon dioxide. So how can one form of carbon be so
:03:52. > :03:56.different from the others? It's all down to the way its made. Atoms
:03:56. > :04:00.tend to form bonds to bind to each other. Carbon likes to have four of
:04:00. > :04:06.them, but it's only when all four are of the strongest type possible
:04:06. > :04:16.that it becomes diamond. And that takes extreme pressure. Diamond is
:04:16. > :04:22.
:04:22. > :04:25.essentially what you get when you With mere muscle power, I can't get
:04:25. > :04:32.anywhere near the pressure I need to create a diamond. I need
:04:32. > :04:38.something a bit more... LOUD BANG.
:04:38. > :04:41...Explosive. An explosion has enough pressure. But tends to fry
:04:41. > :04:44.the diamonds as much as it makes them. You need a microscope to see
:04:44. > :04:48.any that are left. Sustained pressure is what you want, but a
:04:48. > :04:51.lot more than I can muster. To get yourself in the right ball-park,
:04:51. > :04:55.you'd be looking at more like packing your carbon into a small
:04:55. > :04:58.space, making it airtight... Heating it up to a few hundred
:04:58. > :05:06.degrees, and then hoping it holds itself together whilst you park the
:05:06. > :05:11.entire weight of the Titanic on that for a week. That's how natural
:05:11. > :05:16.diamonds are formed, 100 or kilometres under the earth. But
:05:16. > :05:24.there is an alternative to brute force. It turns out you can grow
:05:24. > :05:29.diamonds right in the middle of a flame. Now, this torch burns a gas
:05:29. > :05:32.called acetylene, which is made up of carbon and hydrogen. And under
:05:32. > :05:39.some circumstances, not all the carbon gets burned and it comes off
:05:39. > :05:41.as a kind of soot. By adjusting the amount of oxygen I feed into this
:05:41. > :05:51.flame, I can control its temperature and exactly how much
:05:51. > :05:52.
:05:52. > :05:54.unburnt carbon there is left. At this point, it's extremely hot. And
:05:54. > :06:04.just there, in that light blue feather, the conditions are right
:06:04. > :06:07.
:06:07. > :06:14.to grow a diamond. It's 2500 degrees in there, and inside that
:06:14. > :06:19.flame there's all sorts of chemical chaos. All the time, different
:06:19. > :06:22.carbon compounds are forming then burning away again. But if I get
:06:22. > :06:28.the conditions just right, the hardest molecules will survive, the
:06:28. > :06:31.diamonds. I really have no idea if this is going to work. But if
:06:31. > :06:34.diamonds are going to grow, they'll grow right there, where the flame
:06:34. > :06:43.meets the plate, and they're going to grow atom by atom, so it could
:06:43. > :06:47.take quite a long time. As far as I know, no-one in Britain has ever
:06:47. > :06:53.managed to do this, and I need to run it for hours before I even know
:06:53. > :07:02.if it's working. You can actually see sparkly stuff heaping up,
:07:02. > :07:08.albeit only slightly, in the middle of that metal plate. So far, this
:07:08. > :07:14.has taken... Eight hours, seven hours? It's a long, long stint just
:07:14. > :07:18.to get that. But the longer you leave it, it's like gambling. Do I
:07:18. > :07:24.let it go further, with the chances of bigger diamonds, or do I quit
:07:24. > :07:28.now before I lose everything? I don't want to quit now. I want to
:07:28. > :07:31.keep it going. If I've got this right, those tiny crystals are
:07:31. > :07:37.going to grow as layer after layer of carbon atoms are laid down,
:07:37. > :07:42.forming lovely, sparkling diamonds. But only if I've got this exactly
:07:42. > :07:48.right. These diamonds, if, in fact, they are diamonds, may be tiny, but
:07:48. > :07:51.they are the start of something very big. Because it's only by
:07:51. > :07:54.growing diamonds in this steady, controlled way that we stand a
:07:54. > :08:03.chance of being able to take advantage of all their other
:08:03. > :08:06.amazing properties, beyond just being very hard and very shiny. Now
:08:06. > :08:16.I'm going to try and get these things out of here without
:08:16. > :08:21.
:08:21. > :08:24.destroying them. It still shines, just with a blackened sheen. Now
:08:24. > :08:28.what I need to do is take these little fellas somewhere where
:08:28. > :08:35.somebody can tell me, for certain, whether we've made diamonds or not.
:08:35. > :08:38.I so hope we have. Dr Mark Newton at Warwick University should know.
:08:38. > :08:45.He's at the cutting edge of diamond research, and starts by showing me
:08:45. > :08:48.a large bona-fide gemstone. There is a diamond, looks like a diamond,
:08:48. > :08:51.it's cut and polished like a diamond. So if you pop that in your
:08:51. > :08:55.machine, we'll be able to see exactly what it is we're hoping to
:08:55. > :08:58.see off my diamond? Exactly. There is one very easy test, a technique
:08:58. > :09:04.called Raman scattering. By shining a laser light on the sample and
:09:04. > :09:09.looking at the light that's scattered back from the sample.
:09:09. > :09:11.Diamond is really simple. There's one characteristic Raman frequency
:09:11. > :09:15.at 1332, really nice diagnostic that the material we're looking at
:09:15. > :09:20.is diamond. And if it comes out with the correct Raman frequency,
:09:20. > :09:23.it is unequivocally diamond? Unequivocally diamond. All right,
:09:23. > :09:28.let's see what the real thing looks like. OK, just pop it underneath
:09:28. > :09:35.the microscope. You can see the diamond, you can see the nice sharp
:09:35. > :09:39.edges underneath. Switch the laser on, set to run. There we go. A
:09:39. > :09:42.really sharp peak, so sharp that it's just clipped off the top. Bang
:09:42. > :09:47.on, that's diamond. So that's what I'm hoping for with this? Shall we
:09:47. > :09:52.have a look? Yes. They're definitely sparkly. I think we may
:09:52. > :09:57.be in danger of getting carried away here. Right. I'm not massively
:09:57. > :10:01.heartened. OK, we can see we're sitting on top of the crystal,
:10:01. > :10:11.laser on. Is this it now. This is it, the moment of truth. It is
:10:11. > :10:13.
:10:13. > :10:16.diamond! Is it?! I'm flabbergasted! No way! I was about to say... That
:10:16. > :10:20.is exactly the same peak! Oh, yes! I would've bet against that! You've
:10:20. > :10:23.grown diamond! If you look down there, it's not bad. What's the
:10:23. > :10:27.slope about? Your diamond has a much, much higher concentration of
:10:27. > :10:31.impurities. Are they a bad thing? No, the impurities can change the
:10:31. > :10:36.properties. They can change the optical properties so the diamonds
:10:36. > :10:40.are different colours, you can get blue, brown, pink diamonds. But
:10:40. > :10:44.also they can give very useful properties that you can exploit.
:10:44. > :10:48.That's one of them! That means it's likely that not only have we made a
:10:48. > :10:54.diamond, we've made thousands of them! This fella looks like, that's
:10:54. > :10:57.a chunky-looking rock. There's a big one. If that's a diamond...
:10:57. > :11:02.Switch the laser on and scan through to see if we have a diamond
:11:02. > :11:06.Raman... And we do! Look at that! That's almost identical to the
:11:06. > :11:10.calibration diamond! I'm glad I put that deposit down on a yacht now.
:11:10. > :11:14.hope it's a very small yacht! on a sec, can we just pause for a
:11:14. > :11:18.minute? You've just made a diamond from scratch?! Utterly impressive.
:11:18. > :11:21.From nothing at all? That is amazing. It may well have been one
:11:21. > :11:24.of my smaller builds, but atomically I couldn't be more proud.
:11:24. > :11:28.It begs the question, though, if you can make a diamond from scratch,
:11:28. > :11:31.why don't you turn the gas on a bit more and make a bloomin' big one,
:11:32. > :11:35.then we can all retire? Ooh, yes, please! I'm slightly limited by my
:11:35. > :11:39.flame size, but the size of the diamond is not the point. It's by
:11:39. > :11:44.growing our own diamonds that we can make them more pure than nature.
:11:45. > :11:47.Oh, interesting. I'm presuming you could also add certain impurities,
:11:48. > :11:51.depending on the type of function you want that diamond to have?
:11:51. > :11:54.That's exactly it. You add a bit of boron to the diamond, and suddenly
:11:54. > :11:57.it conducts electricity. And you can even inject individual atoms in
:11:57. > :12:00.there, and you're sort of halfway to a quantum computer. The more
:12:00. > :12:03.we're discovering about diamonds, it's almost the more astonishing
:12:03. > :12:06.and useful they're becoming. Yes, indeed. Moving on, as you know, the
:12:06. > :12:09.ever-popular Dr Yan likes to get out and about, bringing science to
:12:09. > :12:14.a place near you. And this week he's turned his attention to the
:12:14. > :12:18.quintessential cinema snack popcorn. Salty or sweet? Salt. Sweet.
:12:18. > :12:21.salt all the way. It's got to be salt. �76 million worth of the
:12:21. > :12:27.stuff is eaten every year, but how exactly does corn turn into
:12:27. > :12:31.It's one of our favourite movie snacks, but have you ever wondered
:12:31. > :12:37.what makes popcorn pop? How to get from these hard kernels of corn to
:12:37. > :12:40.this lovely, fluffy popcorn? It's absolutely amazing when you watch
:12:40. > :12:50.it happen. Just look! That's brilliant! It's like a mini
:12:50. > :13:08.
:13:08. > :13:11.It's not just luck that popcorn pops so well. It's actually a sub-
:13:11. > :13:14.species of maize called Zea mays averta that's been selectively bred
:13:14. > :13:17.to have ideal popping qualities. Firstly, a popcorn kernel has a
:13:17. > :13:21.hard outer coating and it's much tougher and thicker than in the
:13:21. > :13:25.other grains. And that makes each of these kernels act a bit like a
:13:25. > :13:28.mini pressure cooker. As the temperature in there goes up and
:13:28. > :13:34.gets to over 100 degrees, then the moisture inside tries to turn to
:13:34. > :13:38.steam and expand. But of course it can't, because it's trapped inside.
:13:38. > :13:41.As the temperature goes up, the pressure goes up, too. And when
:13:41. > :13:45.that temperature gets to over 180 degrees or so, the pressure in
:13:45. > :13:54.there is so high that the outer coating can't take it anymore, and
:13:54. > :14:02.the popcorn literally explodes. Now, that tough, dry coating is
:14:02. > :14:05.absolutely crucial. If it's got a split or a crack in it, like this
:14:05. > :14:08.one, or if it's soft and wet, like these ones, then the pressure just
:14:08. > :14:15.won't build up. The crack here, that just lets the steam out as
:14:15. > :14:19.soon as it's formed. And the soft coat here, that makes the popcorn
:14:19. > :14:24.pop too early. So instead of nice white, fluffy things like this, you
:14:24. > :14:32.get this. It's only when everything's just right that you're
:14:32. > :14:35.guaranteed the perfect pop. But the pop's only half the story. It
:14:35. > :14:39.doesn't explain why we end up with nice fluffy, white stuff. For that,
:14:39. > :14:49.we've got to look inside the kernel, so I'm going to cut one open and
:14:49. > :14:49.
:14:49. > :14:52.show you. Now, the white bit at the bottom there, that's the embryo,
:14:52. > :14:55.and that's what would grow if I planted it. What's important for
:14:55. > :15:02.the pop is this yellow bit at top, and that's called the endosperm,
:15:02. > :15:08.and it's full of starch. Starch is basically just lots of little
:15:08. > :15:11.glucose molecules all joined together into long strands. And
:15:11. > :15:16.those strands are really neatly packed together, a bit like this
:15:16. > :15:20.spaghetti, forming orderly granules. But when you heat the popcorn
:15:20. > :15:28.kernel, then that starch changes. Between about 65 and 80 degrees,
:15:28. > :15:30.that compact structure starts to break apart. You end up with a
:15:30. > :15:34.disordered mix of long, floppy strands, which get all tangled
:15:34. > :15:37.together, leaving you with a thick, gloopy mess. It's the combination
:15:37. > :15:41.of that gloopy starch and the high- pressure explosion which gives us
:15:41. > :15:44.the perfect popcorn. You see, when the coat ruptures, then the high
:15:44. > :15:50.pressure inside is suddenly released and the hot water in there
:15:50. > :15:53.instantly turns to steam. And that makes it expand over 1000 times in
:15:53. > :16:03.volume and stretches out that thick, gloopy starch into a mass of foamy
:16:03. > :16:09.
:16:09. > :16:13.bubbles, which set to give us that perfect fluffy, white popcorn.
:16:13. > :16:16.sorry, is Dr Yan looking even more showbiz this series, or is it just
:16:16. > :16:19.me? He's looking good, he's gunning for Strictly, I reckon. Spray tan!
:16:20. > :16:22.He does look a little slick, but that's not what struck me about the
:16:22. > :16:26.film. What really shocked me was the horrific experience that these
:16:26. > :16:29.little fellas go through on the way to becoming a popcorn. Those
:16:29. > :16:31.boiling-liquid explosions are about as bad as it gets, and at the
:16:31. > :16:37.temperatures Dr Yan was talking about, the steam pressure in here
:16:37. > :16:40.would be getting on for five times what you'd get in a car tyre.
:16:41. > :16:44.a lot. It's just nasty. It is, but please don't put that back in the
:16:44. > :16:47.bowl - look at the state of your fingers! Does he ever wash his
:16:47. > :16:50.hands? He's never washed his hands! Anyway, for the next eight weeks,
:16:50. > :16:53.we're going to be setting you a little science-y brainteaser, and
:16:53. > :16:56.this is the first one. They're courtesy of Dr Yan, of course.
:16:56. > :17:00.We've got two airports here, A and B, and we've got a plane that's
:17:00. > :17:03.making a round trip from A to B at constant air speed, with no wind
:17:03. > :17:08.blowing in any direction. OK? With me so far? Trip two, however,
:17:08. > :17:12.there's wind blowing from A to B. So, the plane is flying with wind
:17:12. > :17:18.behind it, and then returning with wind against it. The question is,
:17:18. > :17:22.is trip one shorter or faster or the same length as trip two? I know
:17:22. > :17:26.the answer to this. Do you know the answer to this? I think I do,
:17:26. > :17:29.anyway. Bonus question for both of you - any idea what kind of plane
:17:29. > :17:33.that is? Little red one. You should know. It's a Hawk. Oh. I think
:17:33. > :17:36.you've been in one of those. I've been in one. Yes, I've been in one
:17:36. > :17:39.of those. It was black. If this had been black, I would have totally
:17:39. > :17:42.recognised it. If you're stumped by this little brainteaser, Dr Yan
:17:42. > :17:45.explains it very eloquently on our website. As always, it's /bang.
:17:45. > :17:48.While you're there on the website, check out the dates and details of
:17:48. > :17:53.our Bang live shows. We're across the UK this summer, so make sure
:17:53. > :17:57.you book your free tickets at /bang. Yes, and we'll see you there at the
:17:57. > :18:00.road shows. OK, up next, a word we all dread, it's a word we all fear,
:18:00. > :18:04.and it's cancer, because one in three of us is going to get some
:18:04. > :18:06.form of cancer. It really is something that affects all of us,
:18:06. > :18:09.either directly or indirectly. My own sister is recovering from
:18:09. > :18:13.breast cancer at the moment, and like all families, you feel like
:18:13. > :18:17.you want to do something to help, go on a fun run, raise money for
:18:17. > :18:21.charity. But it got me thinking, what actually happens to all that
:18:21. > :18:25.money that we raise, particularly the money that goes into research?
:18:25. > :18:28.Are we any closer to finding a cure? Before we get into that, what
:18:29. > :18:37.actually is cancer? Very simply, it's when the cells in our body
:18:37. > :18:41.start to behave abnormally, but how And just a quick word of warning -
:18:41. > :18:45.there are scenes in this film that some of you might be a little bit
:18:45. > :18:49.uncomfortable with. So, imagine for a moment that this tower is a cell,
:18:49. > :18:51.OK? Each one of these blocks here is a cell process, so things like
:18:51. > :18:56.controlling the rate of growth, knowing when to stop growing when
:18:56. > :18:59.it's big enough or when to die when it's past its usefulness. The thing
:18:59. > :19:03.is, each one of these cell processes is controlled by your
:19:03. > :19:06.genes very, very tightly. Your genes are constantly undergoing
:19:06. > :19:15.mutations or changes Which directly affects the cell processes that
:19:15. > :19:18.they're controlling. These mutations can be caused by a whole
:19:18. > :19:21.raft of things - things like smoking or drinking too much, or
:19:21. > :19:26.staying out too long in the sun. Now, quite often, these mutations
:19:26. > :19:29.can fix themselves, and everything's OK. But sometimes they
:19:29. > :19:34.can be a lot more serious. Within our cells, there are six hallmark
:19:34. > :19:37.processes Which lead to cancer. If you're very unlucky, damage to just
:19:37. > :19:40.one of these processes could trigger cancer, but you'd have to
:19:40. > :19:42.be really, really unlucky. But if that same cell accumulates more
:19:42. > :19:52.mutations that damage more of these key hallmark processes, it becomes
:19:52. > :19:58.
:19:58. > :20:00.more and more likely that that cell The trouble really comes when,
:20:01. > :20:03.perhaps over many years, the cell accumulates all six of these
:20:03. > :20:13.hallmark changes, and when the final cell process is damaged, then
:20:13. > :20:16.
:20:16. > :20:19.that person is going to develop cancer. So, given that we know how
:20:19. > :20:22.genetic mutations cause cancer, and that it's a problem affecting
:20:22. > :20:30.around 13 million people every year, including my sister, I wonder why
:20:30. > :20:32.doctors can't just fix it once and To answer that, I've come to see
:20:32. > :20:38.James Flanagan, a research scientist who's already devoted a
:20:38. > :20:42.decade of his life to beating breast cancer. Why don't we have a
:20:42. > :20:48.cure yet? Why don't we have a cure for cancer? That's a tough question.
:20:48. > :20:50.The obvious answer is that cancers are clever. Let's think about a
:20:50. > :20:54.cancer cell, everything's gone wrong in that cancer cell.
:20:54. > :20:58.cell? One cell, eventually something goes wrong. It turns into
:20:58. > :21:01.a cancer cell. Yeah. And that cancer cell then divides - two
:21:01. > :21:04.cancer cells, four cancer cells, and then it expands from there.
:21:04. > :21:07.Each time it expands, because all sorts of weird things are going on
:21:07. > :21:11.in that cell, different changes are happening to different parts of
:21:11. > :21:14.that cell, so by the end, when you've got a large lump, all of
:21:14. > :21:17.those cells are very different. When we've developed our therapies,
:21:17. > :21:21.we've taken that lump and developed them based on the combination of
:21:21. > :21:26.that entire lump. So we've got a therapy that targets the majority
:21:26. > :21:28.of those cells. You might kill them all off, but there'll be some,
:21:28. > :21:34.because of that evolutionary change, resistant to that therapy, for
:21:34. > :21:38.instance. To make matters worse, cancer cells differ between
:21:38. > :21:41.different individuals. That means James and his researchers have to
:21:41. > :21:45.test their experimental treatments on huge numbers of real human
:21:45. > :21:49.tumour samples. So, we want information that's consistent and
:21:49. > :21:52.applicable to the general population. So if you study 100
:21:52. > :21:55.tumours, there's no reason to think that what you discover in that 100
:21:55. > :22:04.tumours is going to be applicable to 47,000 tumours, Which is what
:22:04. > :22:06.happens every year. What you want to be doing is looking at as many
:22:06. > :22:09.tumours as possible, to get the information as consistent as
:22:09. > :22:13.possible. Up to now, getting hold of large numbers of samples has
:22:13. > :22:16.been difficult, for a whole host of reasons, but a new initiative is
:22:17. > :22:19.going to give researchers like James access to much-needed tissue.
:22:19. > :22:24.Louise Jones is a pathologist who's helping to pioneer a brand-new
:22:24. > :22:29.breast-cancer tissue bank. She works with tissue that's been taken
:22:29. > :22:32.from cancer patients. Hi Louise, I've got the tissue from theatre.
:22:32. > :22:37.Great, thanks. Before taking any samples for the bank, she carries
:22:37. > :22:40.out a routine diagnosis. So, this is a fresh tissue sample from
:22:40. > :22:44.somebody who's still in theatre? Exactly. So, what's the process
:22:44. > :22:48.now? The first thing that we're going to do is paint the surface of
:22:48. > :22:51.it. The reason that we do that is that it marks the margins, so if
:22:51. > :22:57.any abnormality goes to the paint, then we know that that is too close
:22:57. > :23:01.to the patient. So it's a marker? It's a marker, exactly. And so now,
:23:01. > :23:07.what we have to do is actually cut it. Ugh, this is the bit where I
:23:07. > :23:13.look away. What we're trying to ensure is that there's no tumour in
:23:13. > :23:16.here that we would have to alert the surgeon to straightaway. How's
:23:16. > :23:20.it looking? It looks completely normal. There's no evidence of a
:23:20. > :23:24.tumour in it. So in terms of the tissue bank now, what's the next
:23:24. > :23:28.step? We're still interested in keeping normal tissue in the tissue
:23:29. > :23:32.bank, as a good control. So, what we're going to do now is select an
:23:32. > :23:35.area that we can then freeze down. OK. So, we just dissect out and
:23:35. > :23:42.area, and the idea is to freeze down very small pieces, because
:23:42. > :23:45.they will freeze then very rapidly. And then, in fact, we actually put
:23:45. > :23:53.it onto foil, just ordinary foil, because this allows us to freeze
:23:53. > :23:59.multiple pieces simultaneously. So now, I'm going to just immerse
:23:59. > :24:04.it into this liquid nitrogen that we've got here. Which is super cold.
:24:04. > :24:07.So that's instantly freezing it. Absolutely, yeah. And then Sally
:24:07. > :24:10.will transfer those pieces of tissue into small tubes, Which will
:24:10. > :24:19.allow us to bank each piece of tissue separately for a long-term
:24:19. > :24:22.storage. Right. Thankfully, this patient didn't have a tumour, but
:24:22. > :24:28.more often than not, Louise receives samples Which do contain
:24:28. > :24:33.cancerous tissue. Yesterday, we had a case, a specimen from a lady who
:24:33. > :24:38.has got breast cancer. The yellow is the background fatty tissue, and
:24:38. > :24:43.this is the tumour, Which you can see quite clearly. Very pale, round
:24:43. > :24:47.tumour. Just looking at that, is that considered to be a large
:24:47. > :24:52.tumour? This is a fairly large tumour, Which obviously means it's
:24:52. > :24:55.possible for us to take additional tissue for research. At this point,
:24:55. > :25:00.I was starting to feel uneasy, thinking about this patient, and,
:25:00. > :25:05.indeed, my own sister's condition. And then we need to take our
:25:05. > :25:08.specimens back to the tissue bank. OK, can we go and see the tissue
:25:08. > :25:13.bank? Yes. Brilliant. The tissue bank is on another site, and Louise
:25:13. > :25:17.routinely walks samples through the streets of London. It's housed in a
:25:17. > :25:21.very unassuming building simply known as the cryo-shed. Oh, wow, it
:25:21. > :25:25.really is a shed. This is the cryo- shed! When you said cryo-shed, I
:25:25. > :25:31.didn't really believe the shed bit, but it's a shed. In this one small
:25:31. > :25:35.building, tens of thousands of samples can be stored. Here we are.
:25:35. > :25:43.It looks quite lo-tech. They're kept at a nippy minus 184 degrees,
:25:43. > :25:48.and will only be defrosted when they're needed for vital research.
:25:48. > :25:50.How important is the tissue bank, this facility? It's going to make a
:25:50. > :25:54.difference because, ultimately, anything that makes a difference
:25:54. > :26:02.has to be proven in tissue samples first, so availability of this kind
:26:02. > :26:06.of tissue to researchers will make a difference. It seems amazing that
:26:06. > :26:09.such a basic problem as not having enough tissue has been holding up
:26:09. > :26:15.breast-cancer research. But according to James Flanagan,
:26:15. > :26:18.something as simple as this could revolutionise his work. I think the
:26:18. > :26:23.breast-cancer tissue bank will actually have a big impact because
:26:23. > :26:27.of the numbers of samples that they're collecting. So what for you
:26:27. > :26:31.personally is the goal? What's the endgame? For me, the research goal
:26:31. > :26:34.is to end up where you get to a point where you can say nobody is
:26:34. > :26:37.dying from breast cancer. Is that achievable? Are we ever going to
:26:37. > :26:44.get zero people dying from breast cancer? I think so. In our
:26:44. > :26:47.lifetime? I think so, in my career. You're a young man! I have a long
:26:47. > :26:50.career ahead of me, hopefully, but hopefully within my career I'll be
:26:50. > :26:54.able to say that we've actually taken the mortality rate down to