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 .

Almost every one of our cells has an entire copy of our genome. But only differing subsets of genes are active and expressed in any given cell. Epigenetics is the study of how the activity of our genes is controlled and regulated .

Cancer research could soon benefit from a new technology allowing investigation of how the DNA interacts with the proteins. Recent advances in tackling the disease stem from a change in our view of the genome —all the genes contained in our DNA.

Around the world more and more babies are born preterm, according to a WHO report from 2012. Despite medical advances, very small preterm infants may suffer from various complications and diseases, or even die .

The intensive care of neonates has advanced considerably in the last decades. But very early preterm infants are still at risk of dying. Artificial ventilation or additional oxygen is often needed to support the lungs of the premature babies.

Leishmaniasis is one of the most underreported and insufficiently monitored diseases in the world affecting mainly the poorest and most disadvantaged people on the Indian Subcontinent, Latin America and East Africa.

Leishmaniasis is a tropical disease known in Europe because it affects dogs. It is caused by the Leishmania parasite carried by sandflies . However, several types of the parasite also affect humans in several regions in the world.

Visceral leishmaniasis, or Kala-Azar, is a tropical disease caused by several types of Leishmania parasites transmitted by sandflies.

Type-2 diabetes, which has dramatically spread in the last decade, is most often associated with being overweight and suffering from obesity.

European researchers have designed two new vaccine candidates to fight the HIV virus. These have been developed within the EU-funded project EURONEUT 41 .

AIDS research has attempted many strategies to tackle the HIV virus infection. Now, a new type of vaccine developed within an EU-funded project, called EuroNeut-41 , is based on one of the envelope proteins of the HIV virus , called the gp41 protein.