International mobility fosters scientific exchange, a key element in advances in all areas of the life sciences. An EU-funded project supports this by awarding bursaries to postdoctoral scientists for research and training abroad - boosting Europe's capacity to make groundbreaking advances in medical research.
By pooling patient data and applying state-of-the art genetic methods, EU-funded research is improving the diagnosis of rare diseases that affect the lives of tens of millions of EU citizens.
Pre-eclampsia is a potentially life-threatening condition that can develop in pregnant women. A number of factors are known to increase the risk, but the actual causes of this hypertensive disorder remain unclear. Researchers in Kazakhstan were involved in an EU-funded project that discovered an exciting lead: the baby’s genes also appear to play a role.
An EU-funded project completing pan-European clinical trials on a molecular approach to bowel cancer diagnosis and treatment marks a further step towards personalised and better medical care for patients - potentially saving lives.
An EU-funded project has generated key insights into how gene expression is regulated dynamically in certain cells of the immune system, opening up novel avenues for research to advance understanding of disease progression.
Weaker bones, impaired immune functions and increased susceptibility to disease are just some of the many consequences of ageing, but the precise genetic and molecular processes involved are not clearly understood. Ground-breaking EU-funded research is attempting to determine why and how we age, potentially leading to new treatments and dietary guidelines to slow down the process.
The EU-funded BLUEPRINT project has generated extensive epigenome data on healthy and diseased blood cells, developed new analysis methods and uncovered new information on how the innate immune system works.
How are cell identities created and maintained? How do cells develop? How do they respond to disease? EU-funded scientists are piecing together the puzzle tying certain proteins to DNA in an effort to stamp out cancer and other diseases.
An EU-funded project has generated new insights into the causes and development of rheumatoid arthritis, directing efforts towards earlier detection, prevention and the idea of inducing tolerance to this chronic and debilitating disease. Follow-up reearch includes new studies to further explore this 'tolerance' challenge and progress on a new antibody detecting device.
The EU-funded MARKTHEPIG project is using pioneering genetic research techniques to uncover why particular physical traits occur in certain pigs. The project is expected to advance precision livestock breeding techniques and could lead to a more profitable yet sustainable EU pig-breeding sector.
