Health

A clever sensor device can tell if you have stomach cancer, and it does this just by ‘smelling’ your breath.

Fast, accurate and affordable food safety testing is now possible. Thanks to a portable scanner, farmers, food manufacturers and retailers can now do their own tests in the field, eliminating costly and time-consuming lab tests.

Is healthy ageing possible for both rich and poor? To find out, EU-funded researchers studied the processes driving healthy ageing in a person’s lifespan.

Landmark study finds processed food causes overeating and weight gain.

There’s promising news for the overweight. A supplement based on lemon verbena and hibiscus extracts can help manage body weight and improve health.

Researchers have identified a novel approach to test the adverse impacts of man-made chemical mixtures. Their methodology will help improve the assessment and management of health risks.

A crucial part of what gives the brain its power is its ability to learn from the interactions of the body under its control with the world. Neurorobotics research offers a unique opportunity to understand how this action-perception loop works, and to use this knowledge to build the next generation of robotic systems.

The human ability to use a ‘tool’ (our brain), to build another tool to explain the workings of the first tool, is an evolutionary gift that distinguishes us from other animals. Powerful simulation engines like “The Virtual Brain” exemplify both this gift, as well as its unwrapping.

As a European Flagship Programme, the Human Brain Project (HBP) embraces ICT advances and pools distributed neuroscience and neuromedicine resources and competences. This more unified view of the brain will benefit both people and technology.

Definitions and understandings of consciousness have been hotly contested down the centuries, engaging philosophers and more recently neuroscientists. To make further sense of it all, the HBP models both the neurological ‘wood and the trees’ simultaneously.

EU-funded researchers have developed nano-vehicles that can overcome the body’s immune response and biological barriers to deliver drugs to the target site.

Scientists have started testing the effectiveness of a novel mesothelioma treatment that uses the body’s immune system to fight cancer.

Scientists have developed a new type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique to provide doctors with more reliable information about breast cancer.

The EU- and industry-funded Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) held its annual Stakeholders Forum in Brussels on a very rainy 12 June, the venue being the gorgeous Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. The topic discussed: Brain health and disease, and how digital technologies are transforming the search for new treatments and patient care.

A steerable needle mimicking the wood wasp’s stinger can deliver life-saving cancer drugs directly to a brain tumour.

Researchers have shown that all immature gut cells can develop into stem cells. The findings could help improve stem cell therapy.

Scientists have teamed up with engineers to develop a new type of coronary stent based on antibodies to improve its integration into blood vessels.

All cells in the foetal gut have the potential to develop into stem cells, a new study published in ‘Nature’ and conducted at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen concludes, a partner in the EU-funded INTENS (INtestinal Tissue ENgineering Solution) project. The researchers discovered that the development of immature intestinal cells is not predetermined but is instead affected by the cells’ immediate surroundings in the intestines.

Can an earlier dengue virus infection reduce the risk of Zika-related foetal damage? Yes, say EU-funded researchers.

Could this be the beginning of the end for bypass surgery? Researchers have developed a novel medical device that helps diseased areas of arteries to regenerate.