Political pressure has finally seen the price of antiretroviral therapy for HIV slashed in poorer countries. But a lack of cheap, simple diagnostics to enable doctors to use these complex treatments remains a stumbling block.

Researchers at Oregon State University have made a major discovery in basic plant biology that may set the stage for profound advances in plant genetics or biotechnology.

The INVORAD project developed systems for real-time radiation monitoring for patient dosimetry in Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT). IMRT is a radiation therapy for cancers that improves clinical outcomes by more accurately targeting tumours and minimising the amount of radiation absorbed by healthy tissue.

The most deadly malaria parasite has protein 'wiring' that differs markedly from the cellular circuitry of other higher organisms, a finding which could lead to the development of antimalarial drugs that exploit that difference. Researchers at UCSD have discovered that the single-cell parasite responsible for an estimated 1 million deaths per year worldwide from malaria has protein "wiring" that differs markedly from the cellular circuitry of other higher organisms, a finding which could lead to the development of antimalarial drugs that exploit that difference.

Can it be that the stress on the use of antiseptics and antibiotics in hospitals is actually putting patients at a greater risk of suffering fatal bacterial infection?

One of the newest - and unequivocally the coolest - pieces of real estate on the Brandeis University campus is a facility containing a state-of-the-art superconducting magnet for use in researching biological macromolecules such as DNA, RNA, enzymes and other proteins.

Not least because undifferentiated cells with features typical of stem cells are being increasingly found in organs like the liver, brain, and muscles, scientists are beginning to assume that these cells play a role in repairing organs. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, Germany have now demonstrated, in a study published in the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology, that at least some adult stem cells could be the mere remnants of former embryonal differentiation processes, or, in other words, "footprints" of evolution. (Molecular and Cellular Biology, November 2005)