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Patients should recognise they have to take responsibility for their own health if they want access to free healthcare, says a leading academic.

Durham University's Martyn Evans makes the comments as the Healthcare Commission publishes its 'State of Healthcare' annual report (10 December).

Professor Evans argues that patients should comply with ten moral duties, which require them to look after themselves and others around them, and to use the NHS in a responsible way.

Some patients wish they had a second skin – for instance because their own skin has been burnt in a severe accident. But transplanting skin is a painstaking task, and a transplant that has to cover large areas often requires several operations. Medical scientists have therefore been trying for a long time to grow artificial tissue. This "artificial skin" would allow them to treat these patients better and faster.

Washington, DC -- A lack of clear-cut, scientific evidence illustrating the benefits of mammography screening in women over 80 has created a trail of controversy leading to a disturbing conclusion about cancer care in America. "We are ill-prepared from a scientific knowledge perspective to provide cancer health care rationally, ethically, equitably and humanely to the 'booming' older population," say two leading cancer researchers.

Pregnant women or those hoping to start or extend a family should avoid using the cholesterol-lowering drugs statins, say scientists.

Current clinical guidelines already recommend that women who are pregnant should stop taking statins but the advice is based on the knowledge that cholesterol is essential for normal fetal development.

Indeed, a 2007 study examining the risk of congenital anomalies in children of pregnant women using statins suggested that the detrimental effects of the drugs may be restricted to fat-soluble or 'lipophilic' statins only.

Rice University researchers have found a potential clue to the roots of epilepsy, autism, schizophrenia and other neurological disorders.

While studying the peripheral nerves of the Drosophila, aka the fruit fly, Rice doctoral student Eric Howlett discovered an unanticipated connection between glutamate – an amino acid and neurotransmitter in much of the food we eat – and phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K), an enzyme that, Howlett found, regulates the activity of neurons.

A technology that is adapted to the special conditions for wave energy places the wave energy technology from Uppsala on the absolute cutting edge in the world. In his dissertation, Rafael Waters presents the findings from the experimental facility located in the sea outside Lysekil, Sweden, in which he has played a leading role in designing and constructing. He is publicly defending his dissertation at Uppsala University on December 12.

A potent combination of powerful new analysis methods and abundant data from genomics projects is carrying microbiology forward into a new era. Bacteria in particular are shedding light on fundamental molecular and signalling processes of interest not just within microbiology, but across the whole spectrum of life sciences embracing higher organisms, including plants and vertebrates.

Leading oncologist Professor Tim Eisen has expressed concerns that patients with advanced kidney cancer could be condemned to toxic, barely effective, 20 year-old treatments because the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is likely to rule out using all four of the new treatments it has assessed.

Researchers from the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a key step required for cell division in a study that could help improve therapies to treat cancer. Their work describing the mechanism of the contractile ring – a structure that pinches the mother cell into two daughter cells – has been published in the December 5 issue of the journal Science.

PASADENA, Calif.--Using novel imaging, labeling, and data-analysis techniques, scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have been able to visualize, for the first time, large numbers of cells moving en masse during some of the earliest stages of embryonic development.

An international coalition of pediatric cancer physicians and researchers has developed new systems to standardize studies of neuroblastomas across the world. In the December issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the International Neuroblastoma Risk Group (INRG) presents three sets of papers outlining a: standard classification system; pre-treatment staging system; and an analysis of a rare group of patients.

The INRG studies provide for a unified system of clinical trials that will enable quicker identification of optimal treatments for neuroblastoma.

Combination therapies similar to those used for HIV patients may be the best way of treating hepatitis C virus (HCV), say researchers from the University of Leeds.

A study of a protein called p7, has revealed that differences in the genetic coding of the protein between virus strains - known as genotypes - alter the sensitivity of the virus to drugs that block its function.

Injection drug users sentenced to compulsory detention under China's paradoxical policies on HIV/AIDS and narcotics suffer human rights abuses that may imperil their health, says a new study published in the open access journal PLoS Medicine.

The next generation of case management guidelines for childhood illness need to be more locally informed, rather than relying on those centrally generated by organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO), argues a new essay published in the open access journal PLoS Medicine.

Microsporidia are single-celled parasites that are capable of causing infections in humans - primarily people with compromised immune systems, such as those infected with HIV or who have undergone organ transplants. An article in this week's issue of PLoS Biology documents a newly discovered species of microsporidia, which infects C. elegans, the round worm used as a model system by developmental biologists. The work, undertaken by a team of French and American scientists led by Professor Frederick Ausubel and Dr.