Behind the Huntington’s disease breakthrough

亨廷顿舞蹈病突破背后

Health Check

2025-12-18

26 分钟
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James Gallagher joins Claudia Hammond to share his pick for health breakthrough of 2025 – the world's first gene therapy to treat Huntington’s disease. Popular science author Mary Roach joins Claudia to discuss the future of prosthetics. Also on the show, James shares his latest reporting on how sperm from a donor with a cancer-causing gene was used to conceive almost 200 children. We hear from Mohsen Rajabi how teachers in Iran are providing first-line mental health support to refugee students as they cope with settlement traumas. Plus, how an electronic nose could help detect mould in the home. Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Hannah Robins Assistant Producer: Katie Tomsett
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  • Hello and welcome to Health Check from the BBC.

  • I'm Claudia Hammond.

  • Today we'll be asking how a person with a limb that's not working makes the decision to have it removed and replaced with a prosthetic.

  • I hear from the author of a new book on the artificial additions we might make to our bodies.

  • And the teachers in Iran providing mental health support to their pupils who've come to the country as refugees.

  • And to help me today, I have the BBC's Health and Science Correspondent, James Gallagher.

  • How are you?

  • I'm a little bit croaky, Claudia, but all the better for speaking to you.

  • Oh, it's the time of year, everyone's ill.

  • What do you have for us?

  • I have a story about a sperm donor who unknowingly harboured a mutation in his sperm that dramatically raised the risk of cancer for his children.

  • And he's had at least one hundred and...

  • 97 of them across Europe.

  • It's an extraordinary story that.

  • Now before all that, since this is your last visit to health check in 2025,

  • you get the chance to tell us what you would select as your medical breakthrough of the year.

  • So what are you going to pick and why that breakthrough in particular?

  • I think it's an easy one for me, Claudia.

  • It's the first successful treatment for Huntington's disease.

  • And the reason I've picked this one is