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A treatment called CAR T‑cell therapy is helping many leukemia patients, but high costs and complex production are slowing its breakthrough. Researchers are turning to automation to scale treatment and cut the price.
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00:07What if we could reprogram our immune systems so that our bodies could defeat cancer all on
00:13their own? That's the idea behind what are known as immunotherapies. Instead of knocking out cancer
00:19with radiation or chemicals, they teach the immune system to recognise, attack and eliminate cancer
00:25cells autonomously. A groundbreaking medical treatment and much more, coming up on Tomorrow
00:35Today. Welcome to the show. First came the blood cancer diagnosis, then a COVID infection. For
00:45several weeks, Ina Burkhardt's life hung in the balance. She had to be put on a ventilator.
00:54By the grace of God, I survived it. But when I came back, my body had been weakened so much
01:02that more chemotherapy was essentially ruled out. One of the last options available to her
01:10was CAR T-cell therapy. When I got the news, I first had to ask how to spell it and
01:21what exactly
01:22it was, because I'd never heard of it before. Behind the unwieldy name lies a form of immunotherapy
01:30that harnesses the body's own protective T-cells. These normally recognise pathogens and can neutralise
01:37them. In CAR T-cell therapy, cells are taken from the patient, genetically modified in the laboratory,
01:45and then reintroduced to the body. The modifications help them recognise diseased B-cells. B-cells
01:53also play a role in the immune system, but can turn cancerous. Carrying out this type of therapy
01:59is complex and pricey. The way we currently produce CAR T-cells, the manufacturing, preparation,
02:10documentation and storage, all require a large number of personnel. And as anyone organising anything
02:19in Germany can tell you, personnel costs are the main cost factor. Plus, highly trained specialists
02:28have to alter the therapeutic cells in special clean rooms. That takes a lot of space, materials
02:35and time. Many of the steps involved still have to be performed manually, though research groups
02:43and companies are working to fully automate the process. Here at the Fraunhofer Institute for
02:51Manufacturing, Engineering and Automation, Andrea Geisler and her team are developing one such system.
02:58Cassettes containing the patient's cells are placed inside machines they call mini-factories,
03:04where individual production steps would then run automatically.
03:08The cassette contains everything needed for each process step. It includes the biocompartment,
03:15where the cells are kept at 37 degrees Celsius. There's a cooling unit, where we store culture
03:20media supplies. And also a freezing section, where we store the vectors for genetic modification.
03:28People or robots would move the cassette from one machine to the next, resulting in the finished cell product.
03:37The Festo company in Esslingen builds automation technology. Together with the Fraunhofer Institute,
03:44its engineers developed a component for the cassettes. The goal is to make it easier to
03:49administer the required liquids without human help – a complex technical challenge.
03:56We have very high standards for purity and sterility. We have to ensure that everything that goes back to the
04:03patient
04:04never comes into contact with the control atmosphere we use, or the lubricants, or any other particles.
04:11And material from different patients has to be kept apart, to avoid any cross-contamination.
04:18The first mini-factory from the Fraunhofer Institute is nearly complete.
04:23It performs the genetic modification, the first step on the path to CAR T-cells.
04:29Many factories for subsequent steps still need to be developed, which will take several more years.
04:36Experts at Heidelberg University Hospital, where Ina Burkhardt received her CAR T-cells,
04:42are taking a different track. They're specialized in producing such cell therapies. Although here,
04:48too, production is still partly manual. Experts agree that full automation would lower the therapy's
04:54price tag significantly. Roughly speaking, we could reduce costs substantially – by 30,
05:06perhaps even 40 percent compared to current costs. And that's substantial, given that these treatments
05:13cost between 250,000 and 420,000 euros. Together with partners that include Optima Pharma, SAIS,
05:24and the Bosch Health Campus, the Heidelberg team is working on its own automation approach.
05:30In this case, patient cells are processed through a series of automated steps, producing finished cells
05:38faster and more efficiently. With our fully automated system, we can increase output tenfold. In the same
05:5114 days to three weeks it currently takes to produce one CAR T-cell product, we could produce 10. That's
06:00huge,
06:01huge, and I think it really represents a quantum leap. And demand is growing. Studies show that cell
06:09therapies are proving effective for a rising number of diseases. Within the next two years, patients in
06:17Heidelberg, like Ina Burkhardt, are expected to receive fully automated cell products, hopefully with similar results.
06:28So, since then, there's been no trace of the disease, and for me that feels like a miracle.
06:37Postulating, discovering and exploring the tiniest of building blocks – things like cells,
06:43viruses and atoms. Tools like this cutting-edge microscope have been driving science forward for
06:49centuries. Among other things, researchers are using the high-tech device to examine tiny
06:55crystals in cooled magma. And what they learn with it could one day help predict volcanic eruptions.
07:04This researcher is looking for crystals that form in magma during a volcanic eruption. Tiny traces that
07:12can reveal how the molten rock rose to the surface. Images like these hold clues. You can see that the
07:19titanium content isn't constant, but instead varies in a pattern similar to tree rings. The rings can
07:27reveal how fast the magma rose during an eruption and under what conditions. The way the crystals grew
07:33tells a story. These fine zones show us specific changes, like pressure changes during the ascent, or when fresh
07:44magma flowed into the magma chamber. Things like that are recorded in the crystal. The team is currently
07:52analyzing these crystals together with a group of Greek researchers who are trying to better understand
07:58the volcano off Santorini. At the beginning of 2025, a series of earthquakes that hit the island caused
08:05concern. Research teams are now looking for new ways to better predict potential eruptions. A new high-tech
08:13microscope in mine should help. Its beam of electrons helps them analyze the exact chemical makeup of tiny rock
08:21samples. It's fascinating how we're able to use these very small crystals to try to predict time scales and better
08:33understand the dynamics of a volcano. And scientists aren't just using the device to study volcanic rock.
08:43It also allows them to analyze ancient tooth samples and meteorites as well. Perhaps the most impressive
08:51example is a meteorite we analyzed recently. It was extremely old, the oldest dated material found so far in
08:57the solar system. They also study rare elements that form deep in the Earth's mantle, simulating the conditions
09:04they form under to determine exactly when and where they accumulate. If we understand what's involved in
09:12their formation, we can target searches, focusing on where it makes sense and avoiding where it doesn't.
09:19Analyzing different types of rock samples at a level of resolution that's only been technically possible
09:24for a few years. It's research that will help us better assess the risks of future volcanic eruptions.
09:34Can you imagine elephants in the European wilderness? Or rhinos? Just a few million years ago,
09:40all kinds of megafauna lived in what is now Germany. Species whose descendants are now only found on other
09:47continents. New evidence that they once roamed Europe as well has now been unearthed in Bavaria.
09:54Piecing together the fossils they left behind is painstaking work.
10:03Ah, easy going. Easy going, easy going. Dinosaur experts Peter Capustin and Ant Wallen have their work
10:12cut out for them here at a museum for prehistory in southern Germany. At the moment, they're fitting the
10:18femur of a kind of prehistoric elephant working on a fossil puzzle that's millions of years old.
10:25That's the knee joint. You can tell it's from a young animal.
10:33Look, and it fits perfectly right here. It's just amazing.
10:40The fossil knee comes from a dinotherium, a species of elephant-like animals that lived in Europe more
10:46than 10 million years ago. Standing at over four meters tall, it was one of the continent's largest
10:52land mammals. There's a big difference with them, though, and that's the tusks. In mammoths, they come
11:01out of the upper skull. In the dinotherium, they come strangely enough from the lower jaw,
11:06and we don't really know what they were for. The find is one of the most spectacular Capustin ever made.
11:18Back in 2023, the museum director was out fossil hunting near Erding with his sons, Konstantin and Alex.
11:26The boys discovered a bone just a few meters below the surface. Digging it out was a lot of hard
11:33work,
11:33but brought two nearly intact dinotherium skeletons to light. Some of the bones weighed 120 kilograms.
11:42The researchers had to encase their finds in plaster to protect them during transport.
11:51Most of the bones were covered in limestone, which is like concrete. You have to cut that away
11:58using heavy equipment and take off what's left with acid or tools like those that dentists use.
12:08It took several months to free all the bones from it completely.
12:13Then it was Art Wallen's turn. The Dutch specialist assembles fossil skeletons all over the world.
12:23My father was a fossil preparator, and me and my brother are as well. It's in the family.
12:32And I was there right from the beginning, at the excavation.
12:38It's great to be part of the whole process, all the way through.
12:45It should take about 10 days to fully assemble the skeleton. Funding for the restoration came from
12:51state and local coffers. But without a lot of passion, it never would have made it this far.
12:59Art has supported us with assembly. But the ideas and details, most of that is from me.
13:05I mostly worked on it at night after work, sometimes until one or two in the morning.
13:14A mammoth project that never would have come together without a lot of hard work and dedication.
13:23Many animals regularly migrate thousands of kilometres. How do they get where they want to go?
13:29This viewer question was sent to us by Dimitar in the United Kingdom.
13:38How do migrating animals find their way over long distances? Species migrate for a variety of reasons.
13:46For reproduction, escaping the cold, or finding food. Some regularly travel distances of 10,000
13:53kilometres or even more. And they rely on different navigation aids to get where they want to go.
13:59One is the Earth's magnetic field, which many animals can sense. Some of them even underwater,
14:06via a kind of internal compass. Studies have shown, for instance, that pigeons have highly sensitive
14:12electrical sensors in their inner ear. Other birds, such as the European robin, have what are called
14:19cryptochromes in their retinas, proteins that researchers believe allow the bird to actually
14:26see magnetic field lines. However, this magnetic compass only works when there's sufficient light.
14:34At night, the sky provides migrating animals with more information. Birds such as the Indigo
14:41bunting appear to adjust their roots based on the North Star, while seals also use certain stars for
14:49navigation when there's no coastline visible. Light from the Milky Way and the night sky helps.
14:57African dung beetles roll balls of dung in a straight line away from their source.
15:02When something blocks its light, like clouds or other coverings, the insect loses its sense of direction.
15:11Then there are landmarks. Many animals remember mountain ranges, rivers, or coastlines.
15:19Reindeer, migratory birds, and even monarch butterflies use features of the landscape
15:26to help them navigate during their long journeys. And some animals follow their noses. Salmon,
15:33for example, have a highly developed sense of smell and follow faint scent trails in the ocean
15:39to find their way back to the rivers where they were born.
15:45What are stars made of? How many colors can butterflies see? Could robots have babies one day?
15:52Do you have a science question? Then send it to us as a video, text, or voice message.
15:59If we answer it in the show, we'll send you a little gift as a thank you. So just ask.
16:10Trees and other plants play a vital role in the biosphere. Rainforests are often called the lungs of
16:16the earth because they absorb enormous amounts of carbon dioxide and release oxygen. At least they
16:23do as long as they remain intact. But recent studies show that heavily damaged regions of the Amazon,
16:30especially in its eastern and southeastern areas, are now emitting more CO2 than they absorb.
16:39140,000 fires were recorded in 2024 in Brazil's Amazon region alone. 30 million hectares of rainforest
16:49went up in flames, an area the size of Italy, most of it due to slash and burn clearing,
16:57a worst-case scenario for biodiversity and for climate protection.
17:04The number of fires in Brazil each year is determined at the country's Institute for Space Research,
17:11the INPA. It also uses satellite images to monitor the environment. Supported by AI,
17:18it compares year-on-year data, like whether areas have changed. More specifically, whether there's been a fire.
17:25If there has been, an area's color changes on the map. Green turns to pink.
17:31When I finish this mapping, I send this information for the Minister of Environment of Brazil,
17:38and I put this information publicly on the Terra Brasile system. Anyone can get this information
17:46in our public site. One of Brazil's best-known environmental scientists also works at INPA.
17:54Luciana Gatti fears the rainforest may soon reach a tipping point and start emitting more CO2 than it
18:00absorbs. The biggest problem in the Amazon is that it's losing more and more forest.
18:11This makes climate conditions much harsher and more stressful in parts of the forest that are still
18:17intact. The large trees are the first to die. And as time goes on, and the climate situation worsens,
18:32the survival of the forest comes increasingly under threat. We're not only losing the carbon stored in
18:40that forest already. We're also losing the forest that removes carbon from the atmosphere.
18:48In the journal Nature, Gatti reported back in 2021 that the rainforest is increasingly losing its ability
18:55to act as a carbon sink. Already today, there are regions where it emits more CO2 than it absorbs.
19:02And researchers at the World Meteorological Organization also recorded a massive rise in
19:08greenhouse gases in 2024. You don't classify it in a historical way because of the high quality
19:14precise measurements. If you look at from 1957, it's the highest within this history of observations. So
19:23direct atmospheric measurements, it's the highest that we've ever seen. 2024 was absolutely exceptional,
19:32given also the fact that the El Nino, like as a meteorological phenomenon, has finished in April 24.
19:41The numbers are sobering. In the 1960s, greenhouse gas concentrations rose by less than one part per
19:49million. In 2024, they hit 3.5 parts per million. The impact was quite substantial. Depending on the region,
19:58there's a very nice publication. So I can actually cite you from this publication. So it is regionally
20:05dependent. So the fire emissions were four times above average in the media, three times above average in Canada,
20:1350% above average in Brazil and Venezuela. What we're seeing in Brazil, it's not just fires.
20:21The, I explain to you that the plants are important. The extended drought, which continued 23 and 24,
20:31suppressed the ability of the forest to photosynthesize. So the total signal from Amazon in 2024 was
20:40massive emissions of about one decadent, just from Amazon. In other words, in 2024, the Amazon emitted more
20:48CO2 than Germany, Austria and Switzerland combined. Even though at the 2021 climate summit in Glasgow,
20:56an agreement was reached to finally do something about deforestation. At that time, 141 countries,
21:05among them Brazil, Indonesia, Canada, Russia and the EU, agreed to halt deforestation and to restore
21:12destroyed forests by 2030. What was remarkable is that these signatory states together contain around 90%
21:20of the world's forested areas. So it was a very significant commitment. Unfortunately, it's not
21:26been upheld so far. A recent study revealed how deforestation is incentivized. Annually, around 6 billion
21:36euros in public funding are spent on protection, but 400 billion flow into agricultural practices
21:42that directly or indirectly harm the rainforest. I think that humans are not scared enough, frankly.
21:49Given what is happening, and I mean, I'm working with greenhouse gases and carbon cycle, my whole
21:55scientific career, and I mean, I get my PhD in 1999, so it's about 30 years. And the more I
22:03look,
22:03all the signals is like the terrestrial biosphere is swapping. That's terrifying.
22:10But the news isn't all negative. Brazil's Space Research Institute has reported that the number of
22:16forest fires in the country fell sharply in 2025. What's interesting is that Brazil, as a climate
22:24conference host country, has presented a new financing model for tropical forest protection,
22:30the TFFF. It's a model into which industrialized countries contribute, but also private investors.
22:37The idea is that returns from this fund would be used to pay countries with tropical forests
22:42for every hectare of rainforest they preserve. That could be a game-changer. It makes me cautiously optimistic.
22:52The rainforest could still regenerate, helping stabilize the climate as it does so.
22:57But for that to happen, the large-scale destruction has to stop.
23:05In animals, a serious disability usually proves to be a major disadvantage that can make survival a
23:13difficult proposition. But for a particular parrot in New Zealand, the opposite is true. Even though Bruce
23:20Bruce is missing a body part that in birds is usually viewed as vital, his social status in the flock
23:26is high.
23:26How does he do it?
23:34A kia parrot researchers have named Bruce is a remarkable animal. He's the smallest
23:40male in his group and half his beak is missing. For a parrot missing its upper beak is a very
23:47substantial
23:48disability because it's kind of a third limb. We would expect them to be fairly downtrodden, perhaps not
23:56even survive. But Bruce is different. He's cheeky, curious and quite inventive. Instead of being
24:04downtrodden by his disability, he's turned it into a neat competitive advantage.
24:10If he headbutts another kia, he's essentially got a spear. And he's worked that out. And he's really
24:19good at essentially just propelling himself forward fast, often with a bit of a twist of the head. The other
24:26kia don't like it. Bruce is a jouster. And with his lance-like beak, he wins every confrontation.
24:34I think it's it's so effective that he actually doesn't need to fight very much. So we we recorded
24:40hundreds of interactions between kia, but only 36 with Bruce, because all the other kia would just
24:47part like the Red Sea when when Bruce was around.
24:53At feeding times, Bruce is almost always first in line. Other birds even groom him,
24:59a sign of submission. A disabled animal achieving dominance in groups is quite the exception.
25:06Animals can can actually do some remarkable things that we might not have expected. And that
25:11even being disabled, if you are flexible enough to be able to
25:16to be able to overcome it, you know, if you take it as a challenge and you overcome it,
25:21then, well, animals can do that, too. Maybe necessity is the mother of invention.
25:26Bruce is living proof that the biggest and strongest don't always win. Sometimes those
25:32who end up on top were just able to turn their disadvantages into strengths.
25:41Words to live by. That's all we have time for for now. But thanks for watching
25:46and see you again next time on Tomorrow Today. Bye-bye.
25:52.