Controlling nature's data

Could AI cure cancer using nature's DNA? A London tech firm, Basecamp Research, harvests genetic information from organisms and microbes around the world. Its genome database - the world's biggest - will help supercomputers to create new products, from detergents to medicines. It's a bewildering new frontier, and it comes with big questions - who should own this valuable information? Who should benefit? And what could it unleash?

Presenter/producer: Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor
Sound engineer: Jarek Zaba
Executive producer: Philip Abrams
A Smoke Trail production for BBC World Service

(Photo: Basecamp Research employees collecting samples in the UK to harvest the genetic information from microbes within them. Credit: Lucy Taylor)