Below is a very personal and biased selection of hot areas of life science research.  The bias comes from my own excitement about the fields described.  Some of approaches have been quite established, both scientifically and from a business perspective, such as CRISPR...

I have completed my PhD studies at the University of Zurich, in the group of Francois Verrey. The topic my research was the epithelial ion transport and more specifically sodium transport in the kidney, actually just the portion going through the Epithelial Sodium Chan...

by Simona Varani

This month, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rendered a decision in “International Stem Cell (ISCO) Corporation v. Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (UK)” that significantly modified the landscape for human embryonic stem ce...

By Marija (Masha) Zecevic

As part of a new project, we have surveyed a sample of 87 Italian scientists active in the basic and clinical research in the field of cystic fibrosis (CF). We were interested to assess what needs scientists have for external support when it c...

by Marija (Masha) Zecevic

There are certain instances in which a false positive result of a diagnostic procedure is unacceptable.  A result of a test is always a statistical probability with a more or less remote chance of the outcome not being correct.

In human health...

By Marija (Masha) Zecevic

Every spring, the Italian biotechnology association and the largest national bank organize a joint networking event called BioInItaly Start Up Initiative. During the two days of the event, selected emerging start-ups in the life sciences get...

by Marija (Masha) Zecevic

Back in 2001, in Tuscany, while attending the most bizarre conference of my PhD years, I cornered Lynn Margulis into a small talk. Few months before the event in Cortona, I had read James Lovelock’s book on the Gaia hypothesis and I was spellb...

By Marija (Masha) Zecevic

A piece in the latest issue of BioCentury tackles the pricing and reimbursement challenges faced by Soliris® as it emerges from the most recent negotiations between UK’s NICE and Alexion Pharmaceuticals. As of today, Soliris is the most expens...

By Marija (Masha) Zecevic

Actogenix is a company in Belgium that develops new products based on proprietary technology for oral delivery of protein based therapeutics. Said this way, sounds like a lot of companies out there who are looking to deliver known compounds in...

by Marija (Masha) Zecevic

Nassim Taleb is an essayist, scholar and statistician probably best known for his book on randomness and risk “The Black Swan”. Although his theories came from his background in the financial markets and trading, they can also be applied to ot...