• Question: What invention/discovery do you most want to see happen thats not to do with your topic??

    Asked by bumblybee to Amelia, Jim, Liz, Prateek, Richard on 18 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Richard Badge

      Richard Badge answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      I think I would most like to see a vaccine for HIV/AIDS – it is a horrible disease that disproportionately affects people in very poor countries. The drugs that we have at the moment to treat it are expensive and don’t work for everybody (and can’t get rid of the virus completely).

      Vaccination would prevent people from getting the virus in the first place, but making one is very hard because the virus targets the immune system (that is needed to make vaccination work), and the virus can hide in the DNA of cells where the immune system can’t reach it.

      It’s a very hard problem and lots of scientists have been working on it for many years, but I think it is an invention / discovery that is really needed soon.

    • Photo: Amelia Markey

      Amelia Markey answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      Well like Richard I would like to see vaccines or treatments for some of the world’s worst diseases like HIV/AIDS, TB, cancer, malaria etc

      However I would also like to see some more Star Trekky stuff like a teleporter so we wouldn’t have to walk/drive/fly anywhere and we can get anywhere we want in an instant. I’d also like to see the food replicator so I wouldn’t have to go food shopping and cook, I could have whatever meal I wanted when I wanted.

      Probably most of all I’d like to see the Tricorder so that doctors could scan a patient’s body and instantly know what was wrong with them!

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