Transporting down the road to dehydration

Invited Commentary down the Road to Deregulation

A recent preliminary ruling by the European Court of Justice, that would have ended the Swedish state retail alcohol monopoly on grounds of European law on free movement of goods, highlights the international pressure on countries to deregulate further their alcohol markets. However, those countries that have recently taken the road to deregulation have not been able to prevent the alcohol indu...

Down with road dust.

Background: Despite the growth of biomedical research in South Africa, there are few insights into the operation of Research Ethics Committees (RECs) in this setting. We investigated the composition, operations and training needs of health RECs in South Africa against the backdrop of national and international guidelines. Methods: The 12 major health RECs in South Africa were surveyed using sem...

Cell Segmentation: 50 Years Down the Road

E ver since the establishment of cell theory in the early 19th century, which recognized the cell as the fundamental building unit of life, biologists have sought to explain the underlying principles. Momentous discoveries were made in the course of many decades of research [1], but the quest to attain full understanding of cellular mechanisms and how to manipulate them to improve health, conti...

The Long Road to Eradicate Rinderpest

Transporting Toxins to Tumors

Y ou could be forgiven for thinking you had misheard her at first: “I always found polymers to be a bit suspicious,” says Tanja Weil, who completed her doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and is now Director there. Polymers are long, often net-like molecules composed of numerous small chemical subunits that are repeated many times. The highly versatile and durable synthet...