One silver lining to the covid-19 pandemic has been the speed with which effective vaccines have been developed. Victims of other pandemics have not been so lucky. Three decades of attempts to create a vaccine against hiv, the virus that causes aids, have proved fruitless. The latest setback came on August 31st, when an experimental vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson, an American pharmaceutical firm, flunked a clinical trial. One obstacle is hiv’s genetic slipperiness. The virus has a high mutation rate, which helps it adapt to evade both natural immune systems and artificial vaccines.

The effect of heroin has been described as “a warm blanket on the brain”. Within seconds of the drug entering the bloodstream, it hits receptor molecules in the brain’s neurons that induce a surge of euphoria, followed by a prolonged sense of tranquillity. Yes, it feels good – and that’s the problem. But what if you took heroin and felt nothing? What if there was a treatment that cancelled its effects on the brain? Who then would bother to take it?

UK scientists and clinicians working on a groundbreaking trial to test a possible cure for HIV infection say they have made remarkable progress after a test patient showed no sign of the virus following treatment. The research, being carried out by five of Britain’s top universities with NHS support, is combining standard antiretroviral drugs with a drug that reactivates dormant HIV and a vaccine that induces the immune system to destroy the infected cells.

The recommended treatment for chronic alcoholism is abstinence. But at the Oaks - a permanent home for those who once lived on the streets - residents are given a measure of wine at hourly intervals. It is called the Managed Alcohol Program, and aims to change the drinking behaviour of inveterate addicts. In a converted hotel in the west of the city of Ottawa, a quiet, orderly queue snakes around the reception area. The men and women are mostly middle-aged or older. Some of them use sticks, walkers or wheelchairs, their health fragile after a lifetime of booze.

Since entering recovery 28 years ago, I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about the conundrum of addiction. The most commonly accepted definition – the one used in psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM – can be summarized as “compulsive drug use despite negative consequences”. It’s completely odd, then, that we treat punishment, which is just another word for “negative consequences”, as the best way to stop it.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I’ve had a good year. Allow me to share this story of mental health with you.

Identified as a "priority eye disease" by the World Health Organization, cataracts -- caused when the lenses of the eyes lose their transparency -- affect more than 20 million people worldwide. Although cataracts can be successfully removed with surgery, this approach is expensive, and most individuals blinded by severe cataracts in developing countries go untreated.

A newly developed spectroscopy method is helping to clarify the poorly understood molecular process by which an anti-HIV drug induces lethal mutations in the virus's genetic material. The findings could bolster efforts to develop the next generation of anti-viral treatments.

LEFERY Active Cell Regeneration este prima cremă pe piață, care inhibă procesul de îmbătrânire a pielii la nivelul ADN-ului.

LEFERY Active Cell Regeneration е първият крем на пазара, който инхибира стареенето на кожата на ниво ДНК.

LEFERY Active Cell Regeneration - krema protiv bora za dan i krema protiv bora za noć

LEFERY Active Cell Regeneration az első krém a piacon, ami a DNA szintjén lassítja az öregedés folyamatát.

LEFERY Active Cell Regeneration je první krém na trhu, který zbržďuje procesy stárnutí kůže na úrovni DNA

This is how far a mother will go. Your daughter has been sick for more than four years with a severe autoimmune disease that has left her colon raw with bloody ulcers. After multiple doctors and drugs have failed, you are frantic for her to get better. Then you send her disease into remission, virtually overnight, with a single act of love. “Who wouldn’t do that for their daughter?” you say. It’s like a miracle, you say. “An overnight magic wand.”

A decade and a half after a series of tragic setbacks led to critical reevaluations, scientists say gene therapy is ready to enter the clinic

There are certain words that you would never want to hear coming from a healthcare provider. “Salvage chemotherapy” and “Hail Mary transplant” would rank high on that list for most of us.

Stem cell researchers are heralding a "major scientific discovery", with the potential to start a new age of personalised medicine.