The European Proteomics Infrastructure Consortium providing Access, or EPIC-XS, started in January 2019. It brings together a consortium of world-leading, highly innovative European proteomics facilities with the shared goal of supporting excellent life sciences research in Europe. In this article, Martina O'Flaherty provides an overview of some of the successes of the consortium so far.

What are the benefits and risks for pregnant persons when it comes to COVID-19 and the vaccines, and does the benefit of the vaccine outweigh the risk of infection? Amber Schmidtke explores the scientific data available.

Structural variants (SVs) are genomic variants encompassing insertions, deletions, duplications, inversions and translocations. SV analysis is of high importance for increasing our understanding of diseases including cancer, neurological disorders and rare genetic diseases. Using long nanopore sequencing reads, SVs can now be characterized with unprecedented resolution.

Accelerated timelines are critical when responding to an outbreak and efficient vaccine manufacturing is required to enable a quicker transition from research to the clinic, saving lives. mRNAs allow biotechnology companies to develop vaccines in response to pandemics, such as COVID-19, in a matter of weeks.