Image Source: Serial/Trash There is good news for rheumatoid arthritis sufferers: scientists are a step closer to predicting which patients will benefit the most from a particular type of drug using just a urine sample. Imagine being in pain whilst carrying out routine, daily tasks such as opening a door, reaching for something in the cupboard, or writing.

By Elizabeth McAdam, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute, UK Note: Elizabeth was awarded second place in this year’s Access to Understa nding competition. Check back tomorrow to read her winning entry. Congratulations Elizabeth! Writing always terrified me. Growing up, I didn’t enjoy English at school;

By Emma Pewsey, Department of Materials Science, University of Cambridge. I’m a relative newcomer to biosciences – at school, physics and chemistry were more my thing. However, starting a PhD on the corrosion of metal implants in the human body meant I needed to brush up on my biology. It was time to hit the medical journals. It was easy enough to find papers. However, it was much harder to determine whether they were relevant.