Every five minutes, someone in the world is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). This disease affects more than 2.8 million people worldwide, including 55,000 in Spain. It usually appears between the ages of 20 and 40 (being the second leading cause of disability among young people) and three out of every four sufferers are women.

MS is an neurodegenerative disease of autoimmune origin that affects the brain and spinal cord. It occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks the protective layer of neurons (called the myelin) and their axons (the part that connects them to other nerve cells). When this insulating layer and part of the neurons are damaged, communication between the brain and the rest of the body is interrupted,

Meningitis is a serious infectious disease that inflames the membranes protecting the brain and spinal cord, called meninges. Detecting the disease in its early stages is essential to prevent its most severe forms, which can even lead to death. However, the current diagnostic method, a lumbar puncture, is invasive and particularly complicated with infants, who often present with very non-specific symptoms. Furthermore, lumbar punctures to diagnose meningitis are costly tests that require a high level of specialisation and resources. As a result, they are performed less frequently in low- and middle-income countries.

Is there a way to improve and facilitate the diagnosis of meningitis? Sara Ajanovic, a paediatrician and researcher at ISGlobal and Vall d’Hebron Hospital,

One of the most powerful driving forces in human beings is curiosity: the impulse that leads us to explore the unknown, to comprehend the world around us and even understand our own biology. Curiosity can arise from a simple desire to know something but also from a desire to transform knowledge into health or social impact.

The Snapshots of 2025 are an example of how, through research, curiosity can become advances in health. Here are eight images taken by researchers from our network that reflect some of the most notable discoveries of the year but which, thanks to their colours and textures, could also pass for authentic works of art. In several of them,

In 2024, 1.3 million people contracted HIV, 40.8 million were living with the virus, and 630,000 died from AIDS-related illnesses. These figures are in addition to the 92.3 million people in total who’ve been infected since the start of the pandemic, according to estimates. 

More than forty years have passed since the first cases were detected and, although steady progress has been made, we still can’t class HIV as a disease of the past.

So what have we learned after four decades of fighting HIV? What stigma does it carry today? Which scientific challenges remain to be solved? And what social transformations are essential to envisage an AIDS-free future?

Bladder cancer is one of the most common urological tumours. In over 75% of cases, it’s diagnosed when the tumour is in its non-muscle invasive form; i.e. it hasn’t reached the muscle layer of the bladder.

The standard treatments consist of administering BCG, a vaccine derived from Mycobacterium tuberculosis that’s introduced directly into the bladder to activate the immune system and slow down the disease.

But there’s a limitation to this approach: it doesn’t always prevent relapses or stop tumour progression.

For this reason, the research team from IrsiCaixa and the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute, in collaboration with Archivel Farma, proposed a new approach: What if,