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Last year, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) along with Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) announced the launch of 21st Century Cures. It was an initiative aimed at speeding up the pace of cures and medical breakthroughs in the United States by making sure that our laws are keeping pace with innovation.

At that time, Chairman Upton said it was the first time ever that they in Congress have decided to take a comprehensive look at what steps they could take to accelerate the pace of cures in America.

Health experts in laboratories globally have tried their best to devise ways to end the largest Ebola epidemic on record. Now, technology experts have also been coming up with new ways to attack the virus with the help of smartphones and Ebola-proof tablets.

Since the outbreak started in December 2013, recording and tracking of the victims of Ebola in the West African nations of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia has proved a major challenge. It spread rapidly, killing over 11,000 people.

Ivan Gayton, an emergency coordinator with the medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF), said that inefficient tracking was not helpful, with workers in treatment centers that shared information about patients by shouting it over a fence to colleagues in a low-risk zone to record by hand.

A novel study has found that a form of vitamin B3, known as nicotinamide, can reduce a person’s risk of developing skin cancer by 23%.

The researchers from the University of Sydney recruited 386 patients. They were divided into two sub-groups: one of them has to take the vitamin and the other group has to take a placebo pill twice a day.

They were followed for five years and the researchers came to know that the preventive effect of the vitamin against skin cancer starts after three months of pill intake. Risk of basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas on people in the group taking the vitamin was 23% less than those who took the placebo pill.

Athletes are known to have great level of fitness and performance. But a new study has found that they may also suffer from cardiovascular abnormalities.

Therefore, the researchers have suggested that athletes should also undergo heart screening to know whether or not they have been suffering from any life-threatening disease.

An experiment was carried out in which 2,354 elite athletes were enrolled. Tests were carried out on them and it was found that six had potentially fatal disorders owing to which they were disqualified from taking part.

For now, it is not known as to why athletes are at increased risk of sudden death. But some have suggested that some extensive exercise can put pressure on heart muscles and enlarging them.

A material has been identified that crystallizes and produces light as soon as it is touched.

It has been named as an organic supercooled liquid. A video has captured the moment the material becomes extremely bright after being rubbed by a crystal. The results may prove useful in creating better memory storage systems for computers or medical sensors.

American Chemical Society has reported the research, carried out by Kyeongwoon Chung and Dr Jinsang Kim from the University of Michigan.

Researchers studied a chemical called DPP (diketopyrrolopyrrole), which has been commonly used in dyes and organic electronics applications.

The organic molecules of DPP are widely used in electronic devices such as solar cells, LEDs and transistors.

AstraZeneca is all set to show quick development together with its global biologics research and development arm Med Immune. The company will show their combination-focused oncology pipeline at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, 29 May-2 June 2015. At the meeting, 61 scientific abstracts will be presented and will support the development in immuno-oncology through advanced companion diagnostics and combination therapies.