The inflammatory response serves a dual function. On the one hand, it deploys robust circuits of humoral and cell-mediated effector mechanisms to protect the host from harmful pathogens, both directly, through innate, rapid-onset processes and indirectly, by eliciting the adaptive arm of the immune response.

There is no questioning that pharmacology has played an important part in the great advances of medical science in the last century. Dramatically effective and relatively cheap drugs, such as aspirin or antibiotics, have marked for many once very severe or even lethal diseases a conversion to treatable conditions. Such drugs are the so-called "blockbusters" and they have represented the pillars of pharmaceutical industry so far.

Throughout most of the 20th Century, the question of cancer causation divided oncologists between the infectious and the mutation fields. Both sides counted innumerable pieces of evidence in their favor, but the mutation theory of the origins of cancer eventually won the contest and constitutes now the paradigm in oncology.

Life extension has been a human goal for millennia, and research into ageing is providing grounds for optimism that this goal can be achieved. But are there any reasons we should be wary of extending lifespan? In general, living longer is thought to be a good thing. Indeed life expectancy is one of the criteria on which we judge whether a nation is doing well or badly.

There's a new column starting this month. “In the Lab” let us discover labs and facilities spread around our country.