Research

Manipulating the brain has been a tool used in the treatment of mental illness for centuries, and treatments have often been controversial.

For evolutionary biologists, the best experiments are those already going on in nature. The different conditions in which humans have lived for tens of thousands of years have made us adapt and change.

Paracetamol has been around for over 50 years. It’s safe and many guidelines recommend it as the go-to treatment. At least, that’s the conventional view of the drug. It’s a view so ingrained that it’s rarely questioned. The trouble is that the conventional view is probably wrong.

Having an itch can be incredibly annoying but it actually serves an important function, protecting us from damage to our skin. However, scientists have long struggled to explain what actually causes the sensation.

One study found that the worldwide rate of PTSD among first responders is 10%, much higher than the 3.5% rate among those not involved in rescue work.

UK funding for rapid research into tackling the Zika virus is set to increase to £4million, the government has announced, as British scientists continue to lead the way in tackling this global emergency.

An innovative adoptive cell therapy that may treat cancer has garnered Johannes Breuning from Marion H Brown’s group a gold grant award in the EIT health Doctoral Transition Innovation Fellowship competition in London on 8 September 20

Poorer patients and those who require surgery at the weekend are less likely to receive a total hip replacement (THR), despite clear national guidelines setting out who should get one.

Professor Peter Taylor’s group brings unique insights into the causes of inflammatory arthritis and osteoarthritis with unrivalled expertise in obtaining information from human tissue leading to identification of potential new treatments for these conditions.

Recent calls for the introduction of a vaccine against chickenpox (varicella-zoster virus infection) following a severe case of the disease in Cambridge may surprise many parents who consider the disease to be a mild illness that “everyone gets”.

CTOs provide a legal means through which people with severe mental illness can be made to accept treatment while living outside of hospital.

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg recently posted a photo on the social networking site of his two-month-old daughter in the doctor’s surgery waiting to be vaccinated.

Getting your DNA sequenced is now so cheap and easy that you don’t need to see a medical professional. A variety of online companies are offering direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests for health or recreational purposes.

Antimatter deepened our understanding of our universe and the laws of physics, and now the same idea is being proposed to explain something equally mysterious: memory.

A collaborative project between the Newstead and Sansom groups in the Department of Biochemistry and Christian Siebold’s group in the Division of Structural Biology has led to the first high resolution structure of a full length G-Protein Coupled Receptor called Smoothened.

Professor of Mitochondrial Genetics, Joanna Poulton gives her views on the recent announcement that a baby boy, the first child to be born using a new technique that incorporates DNA from three people, is now five months old.

With approximately 9.6 million adults in England with musculoskeletal conditions, such as back pain or arthritis and a cost to the UK economy of around £7.4 billion a year through lost working days, it is essential we deliver evidence-based treatments which benefit these patients. Led by Professor Sallie Lamb at the Centre for Rehabilitation Research in Oxford (part of NDORMS), the Rehabilitation group focuses predominantly on rehabilitation for people with a range of chronic and acute musculoskeletal conditions and injuries, spanning children to older adults.

A petition calling for the meningitis B vaccine to be given to all children, at least up to age 11 years has gained a record number of signatories.

We live in an interconnected age where wirelessly controlled computing devices make almost every aspect of our lives easier, but they also make us vulnerable to cyber-security attacks.

We feel good when we do a good deed, so there must be a psychological benefit to helping others? But how can we know for sure?