harsh and not always successful. however, we now have technologies like aland robotics which are helping us to discover more effective drugs — with fewer side—effects — quicker. one in two of us will be diagnosed with cancer in our lifetime — one in two! for years, treatment has been centred around surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, sometimes a combination. cancer therapy has evolved over the last two decades, and particularly moving, shifting away from chemotherapy for every patient and for every cancer to personalised treatment. in some cancers, we have really made great progress. and 10—15 years ago, melanoma survival rates — median survival rates — were around six to nine months. now, patients live, survive years.

standard cancer therapies can be incredibly tough to go through. and one of the great new hopes for kinder treatment is immunothera py. that's drugs that work alongside your own immune system to kill cancer cells. scientists here at labgenius in south—east london are harnessing the power of robotics and ai. they're hoping it'll help them find new immunotherapy treatments and make existing ones better. there's a lot going on in here — some of it by automated machines, some of it by people. that's right. so, the different thing about what this machine is doing, and what you might envisage or see happening in a normal lab, is all of the experiments have actually been designed by an algorithm. and all of the data you're using is your own data? that's absolutely right. and actually, that is a really, really key point. we want to build models that

are predictive of certain biological features of interest, and the challenging thing for us is that data that's required to train those models, it doesn't exist anywhere in the public domain. but it's notjust these few machines i've seen. it's everything. eva is a smart robotic platform, synthesising, purifying and testing molecules using machine learning and the clout that comes with cloud computing. and this room is the final bit of the lab process, to make sure that the molecules are tested for purity, that they can withstand changes in temperature and, crucially, that something has been created that can be produced at scale. labgenius says that with its unique approach, it's more likely to find high—performing treatments faster. and they have tested that claim. we took a molecule that's currently in clinical trials. it's an immunotherapy drug? it's an immunotherapy, that's right, currently in clinical trials. we took the one that's furthest along. and we said, "can we use this process to make molecules "that are any better than this?"

we were hoping for a tenfold improvement in that molecule's ability to distinguish between healthy and disease cells. but what we actually found is that these machine learning models were able to deliver molecules with 400 times improvement in terms of their killing selectivity — so, really, orders of magnitude better. these are molecules that, as a protein engineer, you would never have sat down and designed yourself. and i think that's something that's really quite differentiated and special around this fusion of human ingenuity and machine intelligence. but they want to take this to the next level. cancer cells are densely covered in surface markers that distinguish them from normal cells. and it's these markers that molecules developed by labgenius are targeting. they're called immune cell engagers. one part of the immune therapy is targeting a very specific cancer protein, or receptor. the other part is inviting t—cells to join the party and really attack cancer cells. so this is version two of targeted immunotherapy.

it's a very pinpointed approach. you can attack much harder and with much less collateral damage. i particularly believe the preclinical development, which is now through companies like labgenius, is much more condensed, much quicker, supported by the right regulatory framework, much, much quicker. and it really, you know, historically, with drugs took ten years to be developed. it would bring us down to five years and even quicker sometimes. will we cure cancer? i think that's still an open question, but better understanding of biology, a more targeted approach will help us getting most of our cancer patients surviving, with good quality of life, for many years to come. wow! it really does feel like we are getting there with these cancer treatments. i know it's always going to be slow progress, but this is another example of the power of big data.

yes, and what really stuck with me from that day was the testing of drugs on healthy cells — because many experts have said to me the big challenge isn't creating drugs to kill cancer, it's developing tolerable drugs to kill cancer. right. of course. yeah. 0k. well, next, shiona mccallum has been looking at some new tech which could help to monitor cancer patients at home rather than in hospital. shiona: cancer has dominated lynn's life for the last seven years. you get ct scans, you've got mri scans, you've got blood tests, seeing the doctor, you've got all these other tests and things. and it does feel, at the very beginning, that every day, there was another appointment coming through. it's exhausting physically and mentally. you're just waiting and waiting and waiting. she spent a lot of time away from her beloved cat, sunny, getting chemotherapy and blood tests in hospital — something she's always found stressful. i don't like needles. i don't like having bloods taken.

you can be waiting two hours for the results. if the analysers break or something goes wrong, it can be 3—4 hours before you get your results for the blood tests — sitting in that blood room, getting more and more anxious, getting hotter and hotter. by the time i would go into the chair, i would probably... you know, i do faint. but lynn has recently had access to a tech solution that she says has made a huge difference to her life. when i did the training session, it was so simple to follow and to use. this is liberty, a device which allows lynn to do a quick finger prick at home instead of a full blood test at the hospital. you can do it the day before you have your treatment or the day before you go and see your consultant, when you want to do it. you've got that little bit

of control over your treatment and your time. i can do my blood test and i can go and do something else whilst it's being analysed. and the one thing that i did like about it as well — i didn't have to keep going and being reminded that i had the cancer. the kit has been designed by health tech company entia and is the world's first remote patient monitoring solution for people undergoing cancer treatment. the liberty has just had regulatory approval and is in the early stages of being rolled out to various hospitals. here at the christie in manchester, they were one of the first places to try out the tech. absolutely packed — an all—too—familiar sight in a hospital waiting room. if you could do the test at home, you'd be far more relaxed. you wouldn't be worried

about the appointment times, the waiting rooms, particularly if you're feeling ill and tired. and it's just another worry for you, another anxiety whilst you're going through your treatment. what would it mean if you could do this process at home, using...? it'd be amazing. wouldn't have to get childcare and wouldn't have to worry. you're more comfortable at home, aren't you? you've got your home comforts. coming here can be quite scary sometimes. and reducing patients coming through the doors was one of the reasons this hospital took a punt on the tech. what we've done recentlyl at the christie has actually positioned phlebotomy units around the region. - so we now have 10 or 12| units around the region, what we call "bloods closer to home". - so the patients can book- in themselves to have their blood tests, but it still means we have to staff those units in order- for the patients to be able to have the blood tests. . if the patients were able to simply get those blood tests done - or do them themselves at home, that would result in _ significant efficiencies. and that's really important. we're not trying to distance i ourselves from patients, we're trying to make their lives easier. and during the clinical trial,

the medical teams found that the blood testing at home was just as good as in the lab. and then the next thing, - of course, is, "how acceptable "is doing the bloods - at home to the patients?" and i'm very pleased to say thatj it's a highly acceptable approach to the patients thatl we've tested this in. they also found it easy to use. the results from the devices are easy to read. i can see the white blood cells, the neutrophils, the haemoglobin and the platelets all on the screen. and it meant a lot less of this — giving blood — which many patients find particularly difficult. so what is the ambition for this bit of tech? so now that we've got regulatory approval, we're really actively engaged with many nhs centres across the country and really looking at new clinical use cases that this solution can actually be applied to. but it's not too onerous for them, is it? yeah, so everything that we've done at entia has been designed to offer patients a very simple journey. i mean, we are not trying to medicalise patients further. we're really trying to take them out

of the hospital setting, placing them back in the community, in their homes, in the place that they really want to be, and to provide them, then, with tools that are very simple and intuitive to use. so it looks like there will be more patients like lynn who will get the chance to access the liberty. but given the volume of cancer patients across the country, mass adoption is still a long way off. ijust...fell in love with the machine, to be really honest with you, because it was just... it gave me a little bit of control back as well. lara: and that's it for the short version of the programme. - full length show can be found on iplayer. thanks for watching. we'll see you soon. bye!

hello there. settled and warm again on friday, with plenty of late spring sunshine around and temperatures rising across the four nations into the low 20s in celsius. the warmth is set to last as we head through the weekend. temperatures will remain above the seasonal average, warmest towards the east. and it's still dry for the vast majority of us on saturday, a scattering of showers, with the real breakdown happening on sunday — heavy, thundery showers out towards the western half of the uk. further east, should stay largely dry. and here is the area of high pressure that's keeping these dry, settled conditions for the time being. it will eventually push further eastwards into scandinavia, but we've got a bit of an easterly breeze, and that's been dragging some mist and low cloud in from the north sea. but that will lift and clear across the south—east of england and east anglia through saturday morning. still maybe a hang—back of cloud towards parts of the yorkshire lincolnshire coast, though. lots of sunshine to start the day and we'll keep the sunny skies

for most through the afternoon. but a scattering of showers across scotland pushing northwards, perhaps some heavy and thundery, but they'll be fairly isolated. it's still very warm — 2a degrees celsius in glasgow. chance of a shower, too, across northern areas of northern ireland and north wales. a little cooler towards these north sea—facing coasts, with some of the cloud possibly lapping onshore again at times. 25 or 26 degrees celsius in london and south—east england. so the high pressure starts to push further eastwards as we head through sunday. that allows for these low pressure systems to roll in from the west. and this weather front will bring a thickening cloud across the south—west of england, western wales on sunday morning. some showers across the western isles and western scotland, pushing into northern ireland, and the chance of some thunderstorms developing all across the western half of the uk. but it should stay drier further east. again, there will be a lot of sunshine here, and once again, we could see temperatures in the low to the mid—20s in celsius. but cooler out towards the west, of course, underneath the cloud

and with the eventual rain. and here comes that low pressure system swinging in as we head through monday. it's going to give us quite widespread rain on monday, especially through the afternoon, so expect it to turn a lot more showery as we head through it next week. and there'll be a drop in temperature, too, so unsettled and cooler as we head through next week. bye—bye for now.

from washington, this is bbc news. us state department criticises israel conduct of gaza but stopped short of recommending that the us hauled club and supplies. in gaza, the territory main aid agency says it only has three days with the food remaining. and russian forces launched a surprise cross—border attack on ukrainian territory near the city of kharkiv. hello i'm sumi somaskanda. the us has released a report to congress — finding that israel may have used american—supplied weapons in breach of international humanitarian law in some instances during the war in gaza. the document says however that the us government does not have "complete information" to verify its assessment. it also finds that, despite israel not fully

cooperating with us efforts to get humanitarian aid