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The academy award winning actor’s latest film, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, is one of the first big budget releases since the pandemic closed cinemas. Viola Davis is the first black actor to win an Oscar, Emmy and Tony award – a triple crown of the most prestigious awards in film, television and theatre. Born on her grandmother’s farm, a former slave plantation in South Carolina. Davis was raised on the East Coast – in Providence, Rhode Island. As a child growing up in poverty, acting became a means of escape.After a decades-long career as a respected theatre actor, she was propelled to international attention in 2008, when she was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in a single scene; alongside Meryl Streep in the film Doubt. Since then, she’s starred in a great many films and TV series; becoming widely recognised as one of the greatest actors of stage and screen this century. Becky Milligan explores her life and career and talks to her sister, Deloris, to find out what motivates an actor whose meteoric rise is symbolic of a deeper shift in how the film industry values black artists. Producers: Tom Wright and Ben Crighton Editor: Rosamund Jones

After a 30 year career of quiet public service, Dr June Raine has found herself in the spotlight when the UK became the first country to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. As the head of the MHRA she has ultimate responsibility for the process of approving any new Covid-19 vaccines in the UK, and when the eminent American immunologist Dr Anthony Fauci cast doubt over the speed of UK's approval process Dr Raine was forced to make a public response. Becky Milligan finds out more about her life, character and career.Producers: Viv Jones, Ben Crighton Editor: Rosamund Jones

The British artificial intelligence lab DeepMind have made an astonishing breakthrough in one of biology’s toughest problems. The firm announced this week that it had largely cracked the problem of predicting how proteins folds into unique shapes, a challenge scientists have been working on for 50 years. The discovery is expected to accelerate research into illnesses like cancer and Alzheimer’s, and could even help find solutions to climate change. Behind the project is DeepMind’s co-founder, Demis Hassabis. A former chess prodigy, Hassabis has always been captivated by games and the mental agility needed to play them. This fascination with the human mind inspired his determination to use artificial intelligence to solve the world’s problems.Producers: Ben Crighton, Viv Jones Editor: Rosamund Jones