All scientific results must be made public. Anyone who develops a method in the course of his own research inevitably realizes that it could be of value to others, too. Erik Hrabovszky's group has developed a new RNA sequencing method, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, a true classic that has maintained its reputation and prestige for almost 120 years.

The high quality of endocrinological research at our institute is reflected by the fact that Erik Hrabovszky is the third member of our staff to receive the prestigious Flerkó-Bárdos Memorial Medal in the senior category.

The importance of an award can be overestimated or underestimated, but if several people from the same group win awards, it cannot be a coincidence. This year, Balázs Göcz won the Hungarian Endocrinology and Metabolism Society's Youth Award as the first author of a PNAS article.

Erik Hrabovszky and Katalin Skrapits were invited by the French researcher leading the project to join the international team investigating a rare but serious congenital disorder. Their results offer hope for its treatment.

It is well known that women tend to console themselves with a piece of chocolate. The work of Erik Hrabovszky and his team could help to find a cure for infertility, the biggest sorrow for many women, by unravelling the role of a peptid named after a chocolate.

While continents and huge countries are doing everything from education to regulation and legislation to combat the continuing rise in population, in a far from happier but definitely richer part of the world, more and more people are struggling to have children. There are a thousand and one reasons why they have to struggle. Although endometriosis, with its painful symptoms, is probably the most commonly known nowadays, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), where overstimulated ovaries are the cause of infertility, is also a frequent reason. These two - unfortunately common - conditions are also among the puzzles to be solved in the broad field of fertility research.

But let's talk more about this with Erik Hrabovszky, an international authority on neuroendocrinology, whom we spoke to in connection with their paper in the prestigious PNAS*.