Articles
A Health Data Space for patients, science, policy and industry: can Europe make it work?
The answers to so many pressing questions about cancer, and about how best to diagnose and manage the disease and care for patients, lie waiting to be revealed through analysis of data that is currently spread across tens of thousands…
Nanotechnology is steadily expanding its many roles in tackling cancer
A nanomedicine, as defined by the US National Institutes of Health, is a “highly specific medical intervention at the molecular scale for curing disease or repairing damaged tissues... ” For regulatory purposes, the term covers products with a size between…
First voluntary licensing of cancer drug sets ‘vital precedent’ for the industry
The first voluntary licence for a patented cancer medicine was signed last month on the fringes of the 2022 World Cancer Congress in Geneva. The agreement between the pharmaceutical company Novartis and the Medicines Patent Pool – a UN backed…
Born to be walkers? How to stay healthy in a sedentary world
Humans have been endurance runners and walkers for at least 2 million years. Walking and running are our two main gaits. Whether we are more predisposed for the former or the latter is under debate. Studies carried out in the…
Tobacco industry still exerting power in Eastern Europe
Despite major progress in 2016, when the Romanian Parliament banned smoking in all indoor public spaces, indoor workplaces and public transportation, the country still has a tobacco problem. Around three in ten Romanians over the age of 15 are tobacco…
Helping cancer patients preserve their fertility in one of Europe’s least supportive states
It was the end of the first pandemic summer, when Edyta, a 35-year-old active entrepreneur from Łódź, Poland, received an email informing her that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer metastasised to the lymph nodes. Naturally, her first thoughts…
Project ECHO: spreading access to specialist care through democratising knowledge
Manjula (not her real name) was deeply surprised when she was diagnosed with stage 3 stomach cancer at the age of 52. She was healthy and had no other ailments. And when her medical team in South India addressed her…
Cancer and the immune system: turning insights into treatments
The vision of harnessing our immune systems to fight cancer has been tantalising scientists and doctors for more than a century. The idea had a strong scientific rationale: over millions of years our immune systems have evolved intricate and multi-layered…
Tackling cancer when there’s no functioning state: the Al-Amal model
Six years ago, Mada accompanied her daughter to the gynaecologist for an early pregnancy scan. Whilst she was there, the physician suggested Mada herself get a check-up. “The doctor at first thought I had a very large cyst on my…
Addressing the pathological hole at the core of many LMIC cancer plans
A patient visits their local primary care facility with symptoms that could indicate a possible cancer. What happens next could determine their chances of survival. In the event that it turns out to be a cancer, a quick and accurate…