Medical & Health Sciences
Professor Lloyd Kasper | Dr Javier Ochoa-Repáraz | Dr Nader Yaghoubi – Unlocking the Sweet Secrets of the Microbiota
The pioneering research of Professor Lloyd Kasper while at Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, and Javier Ochoa-Repáraz at Eastern Washington University, has revealed that microbes living within our gut contain and release compounds such as a specific...
Professor Charles Carter – The Evolution of Genetic Coding
The research of Professor Charles Carter, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, unravels some of the biggest mysteries of molecular evolution. His research is dedicated to investigating how information flows from genes to proteins found in living organisms...
Dr Hernan Garcia-Ruiz – When Viruses Infect Plants
Just as human beings can catch a cold, plants can also get viral infections. Understanding the mechanisms regulating the interactions between plants and viruses is the first step towards developing better management strategies and using biotechnology methods to...
Dr Elahé Crockett – The REPID Program – Increasing Diversity in Biomedical Research
Dr Elahé Crockett and colleagues at Michigan State University have developed the Research Education Program to Increase Diversity in health researchers (REPID) program to train students from underrepresented, minority and disadvantaged backgrounds in the basic and...
Professor Heidi Zeeman – Neurophilic Design: Who We Are and Where We Are
Professor Heidi Zeeman of Griffith University and her collaborators are exploring the innovative research field of neurotrauma and the built environment. They endeavour to understand the experiences of individuals with different brain sensitivities and neurological...
Professor Jeffrey Becker – A New Method to Understand Cell Communication
The question of how cells communicate with their environment has long fascinated scientists. Typically, cells receive information from the outside through a group of proteins known as membrane receptors. For many years, these receptors have been the focus of...
ReACH – Finding a Silent Killer: Universal Screening for Hepatitis C Saves Lives
Hepatitis C is the most common blood borne infection in the United States and a serious public health threat. It is a leading cause of liver failure and liver cancer, yet most people do not know they have it until serious liver damage has occurred. Currently,...
Dr Stuart C. Sealfon – Using Mathematical Modelling to Predict Biology
With unprecedented advances in scientific research comes a growing body of data. Accurately interpreting these data is a significant obstacle to an improved understanding of biological systems and their behaviour during disease. To overcome this challenge, Dr Stuart...
Professor William Holderbaum | Dr Ioannis Dimitrios Zoulias | Dr Monica Armengol – Walking Against the Current
A research team at the University of Reading is helping people with paraplegia to stand, using electrical stimulation and high-tech exercise platforms to prevent long-term decline in bone and muscle. Spinal cord injuries are far more common than you might think....
Professor Michael Rieger – Always Forward, Never Back
Stem cells are the therapeutics of the future, but to use them to their full potential we first need to understand how they function within the body. Professor Michael Rieger of the Goethe University Hospital, Frankfurt, Germany is working to understand the complex...
Professor George Brewer – How to Avoid Alzheimer’s Disease
Could copper be the cause of the current major epidemic of Alzheimer’s disease? Professor George Brewer at the University of Michigan Medical School presents a compelling case for the role of copper in causing this debilitating disease at a time when answers are...
Professor H. Peter Soyer | Professor Monika Janda | Dr Anthony Raphael – Bringing New Technologies to the Fight Against Melanoma
Melanoma is a worldwide killer that places a significant associated burden upon healthcare systems across the globe. Professor H. Peter Soyer and colleagues are part of a multidisciplinary team of experts at the University of Queensland, Australia, who are working to...
Professor Klaus Gramann – BeMoBIL: Imaging Human Brain Activity in Motion
As humans we are constantly on the move, but how does our brain enable us to keep up with our dynamic and changing world? Professor Klaus Gramann leads a team of researchers at Berlin Technical University driving forward a method of Mobile Brain/ Body Imaging he...
Outcomes of Gender Summit 11, Co-hosted by NSERC
From November 6 to 8, 2017, more than 675 advocates of gender equity from across many different fields in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) took part in Gender Summit 11, in Montreal, Quebec. Co-hosted by the Natural Sciences and Engineering...
The Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM)
Malaria is a worldwide killer. According to WHO statistics, the disease resulted in 445,000 deaths in 2016, with the vast majority (407,000) occurring in African countries. Next year the first ever vaccine against malaria will be tested in a clinical trial in Ghana,...
MQ: Transforming Mental Health
Our mental health is important at every stage of our lives, from childhood to adolescence and throughout adulthood. MQ: Transforming Mental Health is an international charity dedicated to researching the causes of mental health conditions and the development of...
Professor Pauline Schaap – From So Simple a Beginning – The Origins of Multicellularity
Professor Pauline Schaap at the University of Dundee combines elegant yet powerful evolutionary reconstruction approaches with genetic and biochemical methods to unpick the evolution of multicellularity in the social amoebas. Her ground-breaking work has provided a...
Cylerus: An Innovative Approach to Vascular Drug Delivery
Prosthetic vascular grafts for dialysis access have a limited lifespan and usefulness due to inflammation, infection and especially blood vessel narrowing at the site of graft implantation. Consequently, patients need repeated surgeries to revise or replace the...
Dr Lalit Pukhrambam – Targeting Thioredoxin-Interacting Protein: The Future for Treating Diabetic Retinopathy?
Diabetic retinopathy is one of the main causes of blindness in developed countries. Currently, there is no known cure. Dr Lalit Pukhrambam is working to change that. Along with his group at Wayne State University, he is investigating the influence that a molecule,...
Professor Ulrich E. Schaible | Dr Tobias Dallenga – A New Approach to Tuberculosis Treatment
With the growing challenge of antibiotic resistance, developing alternative treatments for tuberculosis is vital. Elegant research led by Professor Ulrich E. Schaible and Dr Tobias Dallenga at the Research Center Borstel in Germany suggests that innate host immune...
COBRE – Raising the Bar in Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation
Despite the high number of stroke survivors worldwide, research to help those with chronic disabilities after stroke has long been underemphasised. The Medical University of South Carolina’s Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) in Stroke Recovery aims to...
Dr Anju Vasudevan – Linking Blood Vessel Development to Psychiatric Disorders
The research of Dr Anju Vasudevan, from the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital, focusses on the early development of blood vessels in the brain and how defects in this process may be associated with a diagnosis of neuropsychiatric...
Dr Stephen Lane – Playing Voice Messages to Improve Hygiene and Health
Hand hygiene is the most cost-effective approach to preventing the transmission of infectious diseases in hospitals. While there has been much effort towards improving hand hygiene by healthcare workers, patients are seldom targeted. To this end, Dr Stephen Lane,...
Professor Ulrich Flögel | Dr Sebastian Temme – Shedding Light on Biomedical Hot Spots with Cutting Edge Imaging
Professor Ulrich Flögel and Dr Sebastian Temme at the University of Düsseldorf are pushing the boundaries of a sophisticated imaging technique. This non-invasive tool can accurately visualise damaged tissue and different cell types in real time. The technology they...
Dr William Lovallo | Dr Ashley Acheson – The Interaction Between Genetics and Environment in Alcohol and Substance Use Disorders
The longstanding collaboration between Dr William Lovallo, of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Centre, and Dr Ashley Acheson of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, is shedding important light on how individuals differentially react to stress and...
Professor Barry M. Popkin – Tackling the Obesity Epidemic
Obesity is a growing problem around the world, with many negative consequences for both individuals and societies. Research by Professor Barry M. Popkin and his team at the University of North Carolina aims to help lead us beyond the current obesity epidemic. A...
Dr Jason Crawford – Could a Better Understanding of Bacteria Prevent Colorectal Cancer?
Our digestive system contains trillions of bacterial cells, constituting a highly diverse community of microorganisms living within us that can influence human physiology and cause disease. Dr Jason Crawford at Yale University has extensively researched some of the...
Professor Notger Müller – Denying Dementia with Earlier Diagnosis
The development of dementia in older age has a potentially devasting impact on quality of life. Tackling dementia earlier rather than later is vital because of its nature as a progressive disease. Professor Notger Müller and his team at the German Center for...
Dr Tilmann Betsch – What Children Can and Cannot Do in Decision Making
Human beings are asked to make a wide variety of choices throughout the course of their life, in both childhood and adulthood. Dr Tilmann Betsch, Professor of Social, Organisational and Economic Psychology at the University of Erfurt in Germany, has carried out...
Dr Cornelius Engelmann | Professor Thomas Berg – The Hormone Making Liver Failure Treatment Successful
Liver cirrhosis causes many harmful symptoms that develop as time goes on. These symptoms can culminate in a severe condition, with currently few treatment options, known as acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF). Dr Cornelius Engelmann and Professor Thomas Berg at the...
Dr Anthony Berdis – Combatting Cancer – Breakthrough Research Against the Dreaded Disease
In essence, cancer cannot be ‘cured’, but it can be vigorously treated. However, many of the treatments currently used to combat cancer often cause harmful side-effects, that are sometimes even more dangerous than the disease itself. Dr Anthony Berdis and his team at...
Professor David Furness – Understanding Hearing at the Cellular Level
How do we hear and process sound? Professor David Furness at Keele University, UK, is endeavouring to answer this question. By utilising modern microscopical techniques, his team is visualising and identifying the proteins that enable us to convert sound into...