Segment on autoimmune research at the John Curtin School of Medical Research on BBC's Discovery program, 27 March 1997

Abstract

First transmission: 1 April 1997. Program: Discovery. Producer and presenter: Martin Redfern. -- 1. Was there life on Mars? Six hundred scientists have just been meeting in Houston, Texas for the annual Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference. But this year, there was one topic on everyone's mind: was there once life on Mars. This was their first chance to meet and discuss more than thirty new reports on that famous meteorite from Mars that seems to contain fossil evidence of life. Simon Mitton reports from the Johnson Space Center in Houston and hears from Dr Everett Gibson, one of the NASA team who first announced evidence of life; Professor John Valley of the University of Wisconsin, Maddison who has evidence that the carbonate minerals formed at little more than 100 degrees; Dr Laurie Leshin of UCLA who thinks they formed at much higher temperatures, and Kathy Thomas-Keprta at NASA who has evidence that magnetite grains are of biological origin. -- 2. A vaccine for diabetes. Diabetes and other auto-immune diseases in which the human body seems to turn on itself are less common in parts of the world where people are constantly exposed to infection. The same is true of a diabetic mouse strain. Professors William Cowden and Kevin Lafferty of the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University in Canberra tell Pauline Newman how they think a vaccine might have the same effect. Animal tests seem to work and human trial are due in June.