Millions of people undergo surgery each year. Many of them suffer from moderate to severe pain afterwards. This post-operative pain may impede recovery or even lead on into chronic pain .

Modern information technologies allow medical researchers to draw on a huge pool of patient data. These are routinely assessed in hospital settings or through health care systems.

About 20 million Europeans are subject to food allergies. Now scientists are looking at these allergies in new ways. It involves the food industry in its work and pays special attention to the link between early diets and allergy in later life .

Diseases of the central nervous system are a big burden to society . According to estimates, they cost €800 billion per year in Europe. And for most of them, there is no definitive cure.

According to estimates, more than 1.2 million people in Europe are affected by Parkinson’s disease. Health costs for the disease amount to €11 billion euros per year.

European scientists set up new therapeutic approaches to tackle specific Lysosomal Storage Disorders: a new drug combination and enzyme replacement therapy against Pompe disease and gene therapy against MPS V I (Mucopolysaccharidosis VI).

Lysosomes are membrane-bound organelles found in most animal cells. They are responsible for treating cellular waste. Genetic mutations in lysosomal enzymes lead to lysosome malfunction and waste accumulation.

Lysosomes are intracellular organelles that degrade and recycle ‘waste’ molecules. Lysosomal Storage Disorders (LSDs) comprise a large group of congenital metabolic diseases affecting altogether one in 8,000 newborns.

There is a hepatitis C epidemic in Egypt. Ironically, this is in large part due to a public health campaign in the 1960s and 1970s, during which injection needles were being re-used.

One of the biggest challenges today is to understand the human brain and we never have been closer to realize it. More than 130 institutes are taking part in  one of Europe´s largest research projects , funded with 1.

Talking or reading. Texting a message or listening. The dilemma of choosing between various tasks is not an invention of the modern information age. Humans and all vertebrates have to prioritise their actions.

Understanding the neurobiology of decision-making is a scientific challenge. The EU-funded project Select-and-Act , completed in 2012, used experimental and modelling approaches to better understand how the brain selects different patterns of motor behaviour.

In the battle against malaria researchers at the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland) have developed a new eco repellent that stops mosquitoes from attacking humans.

Global warming is leading to an increase in mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria . It is considered the plague of developing countries. According to the World Health Organisation , it is responsible for one child death every minute.

A major challenge in combatting malaria is to develop effective yet sustainable mosquito repellents.  Now, the ENAROMaTIC project, a European effort to reduce the spread of malaria completed in 2012, may have done just that.

European researchers have looked how the analysis of your genes could help to determine the dosage for patients who need to take blood thinners.

Coumarins— blood thinners against thrombosis, or blood clotting, are amongst the most widely used drugs worldwide. Millions of mostly elderly people depend on them. But finding the right dosage is a painstaking process.

Cost-effectiveness is paramount for any new medical technology. If pharmaceutical companies do not see a profit, new drugs will never see the light of day.

Poor air quality costs Europe more than €700 million per year, in health expenditures and loss of economic performance, according to official EU sources.

Cancer has turned my life upside down . It touched my body, my deepest identity. I started questioning myself about the meaning of life, about death, about what it means to have a changing body that would soon undergo major therapies and go through early menopause.