"It's a great day", EU Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik told journalists immediately after the European Parliament approved amendments to the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) proposal that were drafted together with the Council.

Leading European researchers and clinicians have joined forces in a newly launched Network of Excellence (NoE) on finding new treatments for rare neuromuscular diseases (NMD), such as muscular dystrophies and spinal muscular atrophy.

Dubbed TREAT-NMD (Translational research in Europe - assessment and treatment of neuromuscular), the five-year network is the first of its kind in Europe, bringing together a total of 21 partner organisations from 11 countries. They include charities and companies that will work alongside doctors and researchers in the field.

Does eHealth contribute to saving lives?
Every year, thousands of intensive care units (ICU) patients across Europe either die or stay sick for longer than necessary. The cause is the fact that many ICUs cannot easily control the glucose levels in each patient's blood. One EU eHealth project may have solved the problem.

A recently launched EU funded HealthAgents project (and recent Best IST Project Website Award winner) is developing software which is likely to give doctors everywhere much-needed help in the early diagnosis and treatment of brain tumours.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. In the EU and the US, one in eight will develop it at some point in their lives, and it will kill one in 28. But harnessing the power of the grid could help increase the accuracy of diagnoses.

The European Commission has given HealthAgents the best IST project website award during its biannual Information Society Technologies event (IST 2006) held in Helsinki, Finland last week.

IST 2006 was the biggest IST event ever, involving over 4500 people from all over the globe. Over 254 Information Society Technologies projects enrolled their site into the competition via the European Commission website, through which the wider Internet community rated them online.

A strong priority for interoperability on all fronts is necessary to increase the competitiveness of the European information and communication industries. A report, adopted yesterday by the European Commission's Task Force on ICT competitiveness and uptake, recommends a strong focus on developing digital and entrepreneurial skills, strengthening the internal market, reducing patent costs, and the promotion of lead markets through public procurement as well.