Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer worldwide; each year some 60,000 women in Europe alone are diagnosed with the disease, and around half of these cases will prove fatal.Supported by the EU with EUR 2.63 million in funding, the ASSIST project aimed to fix this problem by creating technological links between medical centres specialising in cervical cancer diagnosis and treatment, as well as fuelling data exchange and building a larger data repository.

The European Union launched a new research project targeting to expand the potentials and utility of in-vitro diagnostics through the creation of new standards for the collection, handling and processing of blood, tissue, tumor and other sample materials. Under the 7th Framework Programme, the European Commission approved the initiative's funding and scope to develop corresponding standards, tools and quality assurance schemes.

The International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO) announced today that it will make Affiliate Licenses for the use of SNOMED CT available to users in low income countries free of charge, as they are in IHTSDO Member countries. This initiative is part of the organization's commitment to enable broader use of standardized clinical terminologies world-wide.

The European Space Agency is throwing its full support behind an initiative spearheaded by the Portuguese National Health Institute for the development of a Health Early-Warning System (HEWS). HEWS will enable the timely detection and tracking of emerging threats to public health and safety via satellite.

Fluorescent molecules - i.e. substances which can be stimulated to emit light - are extremely valuable tools in biological research and medical diagnosis. Fluorescence can be used for instance to analyze the regulation and expression of genes, to locate proteins in cells and tissues, to follow metabolic pathways and to study the location and migration of cells.

Scientists from Helmholtz Zentrum München have developed a breakthrough methodology for understanding metabolism related variations from experimental genomics data. Using proposed bioinformatics strategy they were able to demonstrate that in most cases identified disease-specific metabolism variations are not independent, e.g. deregulated genes from different pathways are linked to each other via one or two step of consecutive metabolic reactions.

Fostering the development and implementation of national eHealth policies and strategies has been a key goal of the European Union (EU) eHealth Action Plan of 2004. To review progress made and analyse the results so far obtained by EU Member States, the European Commission just before Christmas signed a contract with Bonn-based eHealth specialist empirica.