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It has recently been discovered that gene editing can transform the fat that we store in our bodies from white fat to brown or beige fat. Most of the fat we store is white fat and its function is simply to store energy whereas brown/beige burns energy.

The shoulder has an optimum kinematic (meaning the property of motion) lifespan of roughly 40 years. After this point in time we begin to see degenerative changes. The key anatomical issue with ageing in the shoulder is typically the rotator cuff.

Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Institute in Germany and Jennifer Doudna at the University of California, Berkeley, each received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Their pioneering work in 2012 led to development of a technique called CRISPR

Hepatitis C. Today we take blood transfusions for granted but they play a critical role in healthcare. The NHS needs 1.6 million units (pints) of blood every year to meet patients’ needs in England, but to do this requires 200,000 new donors annually. Donated blood has a life of 35 days. A reliable and safe source of blood is essential but before the discovery of hepatitis this could not be assured.

The Hidden Logistics of a COVID-19 Vaccine; ‘Vials and stoppers are only trivial if you have them. If you do not have them, they cease to be trivial. A shortage of any one of those will act as a bottleneck.’

The Opioid Crisis. The NHS Business Services Authority estimate that 12.8% of the adult population in England were prescribed opioids in 2017/18. According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS) there is an underlying pattern of increasing deaths in the UK in which an opioid pain medicine, especially tramadol, is mentioned as present on the death certificate.

Governments around the world have pledged billions of dollars for a COVID-19 vaccine candidate. A COVID-19 vaccine is the most valuable and eagerly sought-after medical prize of recent times

‘How could evolution produce an organism that responds so poorly to rest?’ By contrast bears, bats and a handful of other mammals spend their winters in hibernation, showing no ill effects when they wake up as spring arrives. What is it different for humans?