Since the human genome was first sequenced thousand of DNA regions associated with various diseases and physical traits have been identified. But to better study these associations a detailed map of the major variants in our genome is needed. The pilot phase of an international project has now revealed eight million unknown variants.

GONZALO CASINO | NOVEMBER 17TH, 2010

If there is a branch of science in which basic and applied research have traditionally lived with their backs to one another, this is the one that has to do with health. While at one extreme, biochemistry, molecular biology and genetics announced the Century of the Life Sciences, at the other end clinical researchers lived wrapped up in a thousand and one trials and empirical approaches for new therapies. The roles have now changed. And the field of oncology is seeing the best results.

Xavier Pujol Gebellí | 25 june 2010

Personalized cancer therapy is advertised as one of the great challenges for the future of medicine. However, although this goal is widely held throughout the cancer research community, nothing indicates that the task will be easy or that it will yield results soon. According to experts, the progress is still very limited, and the definition of "personalized medicine" must undergo continuous revisions as it progresses.

Xavier Pujol Gebellí | 27 may 2010

In May 2000, the first details of the human genome were leaked to the public shortly before the complete DNA sequence was presented a month later in an unheard of collaboration between the magazines 'Nature' and 'Science' with none other than Bill Clinton, then president of the United States, acting as host at the presentation of the crowning moment in genetics. Ten years later, advances in technology have surpassed all expectations, but science still has a very long way to go before all the potential that historic moment gave life to will be realized.

Alicia Rivera | 4 may 2010