The Science Series

Space medicine is a vital element in ensuring the safety and well-being of astronauts, but as many Irish researchers and companies can testify, the spin-offs can also have major benefits for so-called terrestrial medicine, reports Valerie Ryan.

First pioneered by the US military, developments in bionic suits and robotic exoskeletons – by among others the TCD graduate who founded the Harvard Biodesign Lab – are helping to transform the lives of the physically and mobility impaired, reports Valerie Ryan.

Valerie Ryan looks at the science and ethics behind cloning, its impact on industries as diverse as food and horse racing, and how Dolly’s origins lay in a chance conversation in a Dublin bar.

Valerie Ryan spoke with the head of the UK research team behind pioneering therapy that helped a paralysed man walk again after cells from his nasal cavity were transplanted into his spinal cord.

In the first of a new ‘Science Series’ in IMT, Valerie Ryan interviews the Director of the St Vincent’s Hospital Heart Lung Transplant Unit in Sydney, Australia, Prof Peter Macdonald, on their cardiac transplantation using the ground-breaking ‘Heart in a Box’.