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Since 2019, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) has worked with BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions, the BBC’s award-winning branded content division, to bring stories of breakthrough science and innovation to global audiences.
Now, BIO is looking to continue telling these stories in an effort to spread the word about the groundbreaking innovations happening in biotech and their effects on the world.
“Through the long-running partnership with BIO, BBC StoryWorks has had the pleasure to produce compelling, human-led stories of today’s most impactful science,” said Gemma Jennings, Global Vice President of Programme Partnerships, BBC StoryWorks. “We are delighted to announce this next step in biotechnology storytelling, which will in greater depth and to a wider audience deliver stories of progress in areas essential for thriving societies.”
Nature’s Building Blocks
BIO’s already successful series, Nature’s Building Blocks, is a testament to the dynamism of the biotechnology industry. Telling compelling stories from across the biotechnology ecosystem, the series has covered everything from AI and synthetic DNA to diversity in clinical trials and drug discovery.
Watch Nature’s Building Blocks episodes on YouTube
The series focused on six areas of innovation:
- Transforming Medicines: The trailblazing research shining a light on rare diseases and their potential treatments.
- Women’s Health: How women’s experience of healthcare is being transformed.
- Nature Positive: The biotechnology solutions helping to tackle the climate crisis.
- Building Health: Innovative technologies defining medicine.
- Stopping the Blocks: A powerful set of stories about making therapies accessible to those previously missing from the conversation.
- Race Against Resistance: The documentary-style film about the life and death struggle to save antibiotics.
“Featuring world-first innovations and cutting-edge developments from recent years, this series is a showcase of what science can achieve, brought to life through beautiful, compelling and often deeply personal stories of the people responsible for dramatic progress—and those who stand to benefit,” writes the BBC.
Race Against Resistance
Of particular note, BIO’s partnership with the BBC resulted in the landmark long-form piece on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), Race Against Resistance.
With over 11 million engagements with the campaign, the series is well-established as a resource for those seeking to better understand how innovation in the lab translates to real-world impact, as well as for fostering conversation on key topics within the biotechnology ecosystem.
As the series explains, “AMR is one of the greatest public health threats today, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It is a threat that we all face. Everyone, from healthy adults in high-income countries to children in the womb, can become victims of resistant infections and our dwindling supplies of effective treatments.”
This series not only raises awareness on AMR risk, it also acts as a bullhorn for the patients, and their families, who have been affected by AMR and allows them to drive the narrative around what needs to be done to combat the issue: from policy change to investment in biotechnology innovation.
Continuing the story
Building on the success of the campaign to date, BIO is announcing a new series produced for us by BBC StoryWorks that is launching in 2025.
In this new iteration, the series will build on the storytelling expertise developed in the previous series to explore biotechnology in greater depth, combined with a campaign poised to reach an even bigger audience and further generate evidence-based understanding of the tangible impact of cutting-edge science.
“We are thrilled to be working with the BBC StoryWorks on this third project,” Hilary Stiss, Director, National Security and International Affairs. “Through these stories, we have been able to show the breadth of innovations developed by the biotechnology sector and the solutions they offer to global challenges.”
To do this, BIO is tapping into its greatest resource for storytelling: its membership. BIO encourages the BIO network to submit their stories for potential inclusion in the series in a brand film to be produced for them by BBC StoryWorks, which will require a fee. Selected topics and their resultant films will be distributed across the BBC.com online platforms, social media, BIO’s platforms, and through partner channels.
Members can submit story proposal in the following areas:
- Women’s Health: Beyond the traditional scope of women’s health, how is biotechnology generating gender equality in all facets of healthcare?
- Uncommon Innovation: How are advancements in diagnostics, drug discovery and treatment providing transformative breakthroughs in previously untreatable diseases?
- Building Resilience: What is the role of biotechnology in responding to climate-induced emergencies and increasing global resilience?
- A Healthier Tomorrow: What are the most fundamental threats to public health and what is the role of biotechnology in solving them?
To submit your story for consideration, please visit the BIO website, or you can fill out this short form on the BBC website. For further information, please contact diane.grasser@bbc.com.
