Controlling nature's data

Available for over a year

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)