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It is difficult to test whether painkillers work for very young children and we often don't know the best dose to give. But if Professor Rebeccah Slater and her research team at Oxford are successful we may find alternative ways to measure pain in babies and may eventually be able to offer babies some better options to soothe their pain.

have a blood test: What do you think would reduce your pain?

  1. Sucrose (sugar water)
  2. Painkillers

You probably went with option 2. But in babies option 1 is often prescribed.

Read the full article here

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Scientists at the University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh have launched a pioneering study that examines how the immune system responds to repeated malaria infections. The BIO-004 study is being run in partnership between the Department of Biochemistry (Draper Lab, based in the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery), the University of Edinburgh (Spence Lab, Institute of Immunology and Infection Research) and the Oxford Vaccine Group (part of the Department of Paediatrics). BIO-004 will provide a unique insight into how the immune system adapts over the first few malaria infections of life, learning to tolerate malaria parasites and developing natural immunity to severe illness.