Enantiomers are any two molecules that are mirror images of each other, in the same way that, within a same person, left and right hands are: both hands look exactly the same but indeed they are not, as they cannot be superimposed. This is very easily seen when we try to put the wrong glove […]
Blindness is a world wide problem. As of 2012 there were 285 million visually impaired people in the world, of which 246 million had low vision and 39 million were blind. Most people with poor vision are in the developing world and are over the age of 50 years. One basic aspect for quality of […]
We all have listened about gene therapy, and for those who are old enough not in a good way, at all. Gene therapy became the most promising clinical therapy in the 1990s and this technology was meant to transform medicine. In essence, the concept of gene therapy is pretty simple: the introduction of an exogenous […]
Trying to know the cause/s of cancer is nowadays a key issue for our society. Scientists and doctors from all over the world are working to study how cancer appears and what factors can increase its risk to help developing new ways of prevention and treatment. Accordingly, government and charity budgets dedicated to cancer research […]
Diabetes is becoming a huge problem in our society, affecting nowadays one in every 20 people in this planet. Although some people don’t know, diabetes is a very serious disease that can cause damage in the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves, producing different neuropathies, kidney failures, blindness and increasing in the risk of […]
That the so-called “Mediterranean diet” is good to keep a healthy heart is well known. However, how the eating habits of this population help them to stay healthy is not fully understood yet. Researchers from the University of Cambridge in the UK have investigated the effect of lycopene , the substance that gives the red […]
The discovery and development of new drugs is a long and expensive process, and despite of it, essential to face present and new diseases. For small molecules, which account for the majority of the marketed drugs, the discovery process generally involves finding a starting point termed hit or lead compound. These molecules have biological activity […]
What is a radiation dosimeter? Why do we need one? To give you an interesting and short response I will remind you what the Japanese government officials offered to Fukushima evacuees after the 2011 nuclear disaster. Having failed to reach their original radiation decontamination target, the government proposed that evacuees could return to their homes […]