Access to Understanding is a prestigious, international science-writing competition aimed at PhD students and early career post-doctoral researchers, developed by Europe PubMed Central and The British Library.

by Emma Pewsey (University of Cambridge, UK) Winner of Access to Understanding 2013 X-rays can now be used not only to show where bones have fractured, but also to investigate why these bones break in the first place. Results suggest the possibility of preventing the trauma of thousands of broken hips using drugs already commonly used for treating osteoporosis. Normal healthy bones can be thought of as nature’s scaffold poles.

By Claire Sand (King’s College London, UK) Awarded joint 2nd prize for Access to Understanding 2013 For years scientists have attempted to harness the potential of stem cells for repairing damaged blood vessels. The tendency of stem cells to cause cancer, however, has meant that progress has been limited.

By Ian Le Guillou (University of Cambridge, UK) Awarded joint 2nd prize for Access to Understanding 2013 A mutation that allows cells to grow out of control could also provide a new way to target and destroy cancer cells.

by Nina Rzechorzek (University of Edinburgh, UK) Short-listed for Access to Understanding 2013 How do nerve cells die? Many human diseases involve degeneration of the nervous system – a system of interconnecting nerve cells, allowing us to sense and respond to our environment. All of these disorders are incurable and fatal. Most of them share a common feature – aggregation of abnormal protein within nerve cells.

by Gráinne Long (MRC Epidemiology Unit, Cambridge, UK) Short-listed for Access to Understanding 2013 Cardiovascular disease (CVD) describes any disease that affects the heart or blood vessels, and is currently the leading cause of death in women world-wide. Now complications during pregnancy can be used as an early indicator to identify women at high risk of future cardiovascular disease.

by Robert Hoskin (University of Sheffield, UK) Short-listed for Access to Understanding 2013 To what extent do biological and environmental factors influence how an organism develops? This question, often framed as the ‘nature-nurture debate’, is one of the most fundamental problems that science has to address.

By Katarzyna Makowska (University of Leeds, UK) Short-listed for Access to Understanding 2013 Brian J. McHugh and colleagues from University of Edinburgh and King’s College London have discovered a one-protein switch that makes normal lung cells behave like metastatic cancer cells. This exciting finding, published in PLOS One in July 2012, brings us closer to conquering lung cancer.

By David Daversa (Institute of Zoology, University of Cambridge, UK) Short-listed for Access to Understanding 2013 Most people may not think very much about reasons explaining the shape of our feet. For evolutionary biologists and designers of prosthetic legs however, this topic is of major interest.

By Luisa Robbez-Masson (Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University, London, UK) Short-listed for Access to Understanding 2013 Oestrogen is a female hormone, produced in the ovaries, that stimulates the formation of the female sexual characteristics at puberty. It also triggers the growth of the breast tissues during the reproductive cycle and during pregnancy.

This post is by our guest, Dr Stephen Pinfield, a Senior Lecturer in the Information School at the University of Sheffield.