Unlocking the mystery of that 5% of sudden cardiac deaths which are not caused by any apparent anatomic abnormality points to a group of inherited gene mutations in the heart’s ion channels.

Bacteria and other microorganisms that cause infections are remarkably resilient and can develop ways to survive drugs meant to kill or weaken them.

A new revolutionary method has been developed by a European consortium of scientists to improve diagnosis of lung cancer, with clinical study centers in Innsbruck and Rostock.

“We need our own kind of Kyoto treaty for antibiotics: the point is, we should treat antibiotics as a non-renewable source”, says professor Antonio Cassone, research director of the Italian Istituto Superiore di Sanità.

Sun is bad for our skin. Even if we are aware of this, it is hard to resist wanting a suntan. For this reason, melanoma occurrences have been rising steadily in Europe since 1930.

A new range of garments will soon be out. Gucci? Prada? - Not this time. The emphasis here is not fashion but prevention of chronic disease.

A microchip placed in the mouth can improve the life of people that suffer from Xerostomia, a condition that affects saliva production in the mouth.

Now in a test phase at the Université Libre in Brussels, new ‘VAKHUM’ software can create 3-D models of the human body. The system will soon be applied for treatment in orthopaedic wards.

For every physician and patient, reduction of medical error is a priority issue. 10% of diagnoses and prescriptions are estimated to be flawed.

Seafood sometimes poses health risks to consumers. Unfortunately, these are not very well defined. What is more, the risks associated with non-regulated contaminants, responsible for such health hazards, are not all well understood.

When it comes to the emergence of antimalarial drug resistance, it’s not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’.

Millions of people die each year of malaria – a disease transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito. There are major barriers in vaccine development as well as increased resistance to currently available therapies.

European researchers and clinicians are working hand in hand to unveil the mechanisms leading to back pain, likely the most widespread chronic pathology among humans .

Even if you do not suffer from pain in the intervertebral discs in your lower back, it is a sure bet that you know someone who does. Yet, surprisingly little is known about what causes this disc degeneration .

Lower back pain is a broad yet subtle subject. It has widely been associated with early degeneration of the discs of the human spine.

The impact if this challenge could be huge, as this set of data could l ead to new therapies and diagnosing tools for virtually all diseases , including diabetes or cancer.  Proteins are everywhere.

The human genome and those of several other organisms have been mapped. But it is proteins that perform the majority of biological functions within every organism .

More than ten years ago, scientists completely mapped the human genome. Now, the attention has turned to enumerating the entire human protein set. Proteins are of interest because they carry out most chemical activities in a cell.

We all get vitamin D in two ways – from our diet and from exposure to the sun.  A lack of this vitamin puts young children at risk of bone diseases like rickets and older children and adults at risk of bone softening .

Within the framework of the European ATLAS project, a team of researchers in Naples has created a LASER-based prototype that could revolutionize medicine and our knowledge of the human genome .