With a £10 million grant awarded by the Leverhulme Trust, the University of Cambridge is to establish a new research centre dedicated to exploring the nature and extent of life in the Universe.
Leprosy hijacks our immune system, turning an important repair mechanism into one that causes potentially irreparable damage to our nerve cells, according to new research that uses zebrafish to study the disease. As such, the disease may share common characteristics with conditions such as multiple sclerosis.
Enzymes made from artificial molecules which do not occur anywhere in nature have been shown to trigger chemical reactions in the lab, challenging existing views about the conditions that are needed to enable life to happen.