Articles about 'global health'

Tony Kouzarides is passionate about ecosystems: well-balanced communities that flourish on mutual and dynamic interactions. But the ecosystems that excite him are not made up of plants, animals and environments. They’re made up of experts.

Trevor Lawley and Gordon Dougan are bug hunters, albeit not the conventional kind. The bugs they collect are invisible to the naked eye. And even though we’re teeming with them, researchers are only beginning to discover how they keep us healthy – and how we could use these bugs as drugs.

The stirrings of a revolution are starting to ripple through hundreds of laboratories. It’s a revolution that aims to result in new medicines – faster and with fewer failures – and it’s being led by three UK universities and three global pharmaceutical companies.

It is almost impossible for an injured heart to fully mend itself. Within minutes of being deprived of oxygen – as happens during a heart attack when arteries to the heart are blocked – the heart’s muscle cells start to die. Sanjay Sinha wants to mend these hearts so that they work again. 

Scientists have uncovered why Zika virus may specifically target neural stem cells in the developing brain, potentially leading to microcephaly – a potentially serious birth defect where the brain fails to develop properly, leading to a smaller head. 

Homerton Fellow Dr Michelle Oyen explains why she has dedicated her working life to investigating why pregnancies go wrong.

Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, the President of the European Research Council, was in Cambridge on Thursday, 16 March to celebrate the ERC’s 10th anniversary.

A complication of pregnancy that causes the mother’s blood pressure to rise – often fatally – is more common in women of African descent than any other. Research in Uganda by African and Cambridge researchers is helping to uncover why.

We ask how a 'matchmaking' programme that teams up Cambridge and African researchers is making expertise and resources available to support Africans working in Africa.

Iron deficiency can be fatal. But in countries where patients are also likely to have other serious diseases, so too can the iron supplements used to treat it. Nearly 12 years ago, Dora Pereira – sometimes referred to as ‘The Iron Lady’ – was part of the team who had an idea for a new supplement. She now leads its clinical trial in The Gambia.