Better, brighter, faster – that's where photonic lasers are trying to take us. A lay guide to the technology.

With licensing and collaboration now the lifeblood of the drug industry, the annual BIO-Europe get-together was focused on partnering. Nuala Moran was there.

It has been six years since a French biotech company made a stock market debut – and now two, BioAlliance and ExonHit, are doing so. Is the European market reawakening?

"Scientific work … must be done for itself, for the beauty of science." Marie Curie, chemist & physicist (1867 - 1934)

The Cambridge-based company a.gain medical says it has invented the world's first urethral sensor for women – and is looking for further investment.

The universities of Cambridge and Manchester, Imperial College London and the SETsquared Partnership, a joint venture among four universities in southern England, have won funding to collaborate with peers in the US and with companies such as Airbus and Boeing.