EU-funded scientists in Japan and the UK have shed new light on how stems cells develop into other types of cells. Their discovery that a protein called Nanog lies at the heart of a mechanism that gives stem cells their remarkable properties has important implications for the future use of stem cells in medical applications. The results are published in the journal Cell.

Transinsight's GoPubMed.com, the semantic search engine for the life sciences, has been recognized with the 2009 red dot: best of the best award in the category communication design - graphical user interfaces and interactive tool. A total of 6,112 submissions were received from 42 countries.

Pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research releases its latest consumer marketing research module, "Pharmaceutical Search Engine Marketing: Leveraging Online Health Searching to Fulfill Brand Goals", as part of its ePharma Consumer® market research and strategic advisory service.

EU-funded researchers have demonstrated that it is possible to protect healthy volunteers against malaria by infecting them with malaria parasites while treating them with the antimalarial drug chloroquine. The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), raise hopes that it will soon be possible to develop an effective vaccine against the deadly disease.

Shire's ADHD treatment Vyvanse® owns the most popular product site among pediatricians, according to pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research. The finding comes from the recently released ePharma Physician® market research and strategic advisory service, which focuses on the digital resource and communication preferences and behaviors of physicians who interact with pharmaceutical, device, and biotech companies via the Internet and other technologies.

OpSec Security, Inc., the global leader in anti-counterfeiting and brand protection, today released a two-year study which shows substantial trends of increased illicit behavior by trade board sellers that offer bulk pharmaceuticals and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) to buyers and intermediaries, and Internet pharmacies that sell drugs directly to consumers.

The National Cancer Research Institute's free online cancer research portal, ONIX, has launched to the public today. ONIX (ONcology Information eXchange) enables scientists and clinicians to search through and access international research data held online - to improve the flow of cancer research information between individuals, institutions and organisations.