While looking forward to 2020, the editorial team at Research Matters looks back on some of the interesting stories that we published during 2019. There were many interesting ones ranging from the first photograph of a black hole to air pollution in Delhi to using vibrations for painless injections. Here is a list to highlight India's year in science during 2019. This is in no way ranked and the order is just incidental.

2019 was an exciting year for science as ever. We have collated the top ten stories that was popular on Research Matters in 2019. These were the ones that garnered most views because of readers like you. We would like to thank you for patronage and look forward to your support in the years to come.

In a study published in the journal The Lancet Oncology, the researchers collected and analyzed data from various published reports such as the Global WHO FCTC Implementation Progress Reports of 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, WHO reports on global tobacco epidemic 2013, 2015 and 2017, Global Tobacco Surveillance System Data and the WHO-NCI Monograph. They examined the prevalence, trends and policy progress in smokeless tobacco control on the lines of the WHO FCTC guidelines.

Pune researchers take a molecular modelling approach to identify drug targets for the deadly Nipah virus.

Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV). The virus spreads through blood-to-blood contact, and is usually associated with the use of intravenous drug use, blood donations and other unhygienic use of medical equipment leading to exchange of blood. Once infected, a patient can go years without facing severe symptoms, like liver failure and cirrhosis, only to feel it’s accumulated effects after a long period.

Diabetes is a metabolic disorder where the body does not produce or effectively use the hormone insulin, resulting in elevated levels of glucose in the blood. Monitoring the amount of blood glucose can aid effective diagnosis, treatment, and access to quality healthcare management to diabetic patients. One of the ways to monitor blood glucose is through commercially available biosensors. Although such a test can be done at home at any time, there is a growing need to have pain-free alternatives. Hence, researchers are exploring glucose biosensors that do not need so much blood and are reliable, accurate, biodegradable, biocompatible and user-friendly. In a recent study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers at the Indian Institutes of Technology Indore and Bombay, have developed one such sensor.

Hypertension is the most prevalent chronic ailment in India. According to the National Health Profile (NHP) 2019 data, of all the patients who visited government clinics in 2018, 6.19% of the people were diagnosed with hypertension. It is higher than the people diagnosed with diabetes, the next prevalent chronic disease in India, which accounts for 4.75%. However, the numbers could be an underestimation, since the NHP does not assess people who visit the private clinics.

In a recent study, researchers from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, have shown that the release of calcium from the neurons in specific synapses promotes their reuse.

In a new study, the researchers from the Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bengaluru, in collaboration with researchers from France and Chile, provide us with an understanding of the physical forces that drive axonal beading and retraction. The findings could hold new insights on understanding neurodegeneration. The results of the study, funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), are published in the Biophysical Journal.

In India, one woman dies of cervical cancer every 8 minutes, and for every two women newly diagnosed with breast cancer, one succumbs to it. In 2018, all over the country, 7,84,821 people lost their lives to cancer. Numerous scientific research is underway to discover new and improved drugs for cancer. Chemotherapy, where anti-cancer drugs are administered to kill cancerous cells, is one of the traditional and most successful treatment methods. In a recent study, Dr Sumit Ghosh, from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, discusses cisplatin, the first-ever metal-based drug used in chemotherapy.