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NHS pressure reduces medical research
The heavy pressures of working for the National Health Service are leaving little time for essential medical research, doctors warned today. A poll of 600 clinical academics carried out by the British Medical Association found that routine clinical work makes up almost 40 per cent of their workload, 10 per cent is on emergency clinical care, while only 35 per cent is spent on research and 15 per cent on teaching.

Wounds open to new-age treatment
A revolutionary treatment for people with wounds that will not heal is being made available in the UK. Keith Harding, from the wound healing research unit at the University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff, said the treatment, Promogran, could mean major long-term savings for the NHS.

Life science stars shine in Dundee
Three life scientists hailed as "international stars of the future" have been given personal chairs at Dundee University. Bill Hunter, Mike Stark and Julian Blow have respectively been appointed to chairs in structural biology, yeast molecular biology and chromosome maintenance.

UCLA buys Sontag archive
The University of California Los Angeles is to purchase the literary archive of author Susan Sontag for an estimated $1.1 million (£770,000). Ms Sontag, 69 today, has lived in New York for 40 years but was raised in Tucson and Los Angeles, and sees the purchases as "renewing an old connection with Southern California".