Cardiovascular disease accounts for one in three deaths worldwide, making it the leading cause of death today. Behind this figure lies a long list of conditions whose symptoms don’t always give any warning, and risk factors that can go unnoticed until their consequences are irreversible.

That’s why cardiovascular research is advancing in three crucial and complementary directions: firstly, prevention before the first symptoms appear; secondly, more accurate diagnosis; and finally, the development of treatments capable of repairing damage to the heart and restoring its function once the disease has developed. 

Today, on World Heart Day, we highlight some of the areas our research community is working on,

In this month’s instalment, science and artistic creation embark on the same journey from shadow to light.

This month’s Snapshot emerges from deep shadow, evoking Odilon Redon’s iconic noir drawings (black-and-white works characterised by dense, diffuse, dreamlike and unsettling forms), prior to his subsequent transition towards colour and light. Similarly, the image from this scientific study first dwells in the shadow of tumour spheres to, through the impact of blue light, activate a photosensitiser drug that goes on to act on these resistant cells and unfold the true ‘scientific work’.

We’ve adopted two approaches to examine this intersection of perspectives between art and science in this innovative photopharmacological study.

Three in the morning. 27 degrees.

This was the lowest temperature recorded by Barcelona’s thermometers during the night of 28-29 June 2026. Such tropical nights have ceased to be a summer anomaly, becoming a symptom of a more far-reaching transformation: climate change is no longer just an environmental phenomenon but also a public health crisis of the first order.

The figures bear this out. In the summer of 2024 alone, over 62,700 people died from heat-related causes in Europe, according to a study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) published in Nature Medicine. To analyse this new reality, the report Extreme Heat,

An HIV infection attacks the immune system of those affected. Although HIV can now be effectively treated and prevented through antiretroviral therapy, there’s still no cure that’s fully applicable and accessible for the general population. That’s why finding a definitive cure remains one of the greatest challenges facing modern medicine. 

Nevertheless, there are cases that offer a glimmer of hope regarding this goal, namely patients who’ve achieved viral remission after undergoing a stem cell transplant to treat haematological cancer. To further our knowledge in this area, the international consortium IciStem, coordinated by IrsiCaixa (a leading research center for research on infections and immunity), has spent over a decade monitoring 40 people with HIV who’ve received this kind of transplant.

The fluid and abstract forms in nature have the power to inspire both scientific breakthroughs and avant-garde art. This month’s Snapshot straddles precisely that boundary; an image depicting a key discovery in the regulation of human fertility, yet one which, to the artistic eye, evokes the organic growth of Jean Arp’s sculptures.

To analyse this snapshot, which forms part of a study published in the journal Science, we draw on a combination of artistic and scientific perspectives. The scientific focus is provided by Eva González Suárez, the study’s director, researcher and Leader of the Transformation and Metastasis Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO),