… without microplastics and pollutants Sustainable food production in aquacultures entirely without microplastics – that is the long-term goal of a new research project at Hof University of Applied Sciences that will run for two years. The scientists led by project manager Prof. Dr. Manuela Wimmer have now received funding of EUR 220,000 for “BioBioCarrier” from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and as part of the Central Innovation Program for SMEs (ZIM). Plastics in the food chain are…
When a muscle grows, because its owner is still growing too or has started exercising regularly, some of the stem cells in this muscle develop into new muscle cells. The same thing happens when an injured muscle starts to heal. At the same time, however, the muscle stem cells must produce further stem cells – i.e., renew themselves – as their supply would otherwise be depleted very quickly. This requires that the cells involved in muscle growth communicate with each…
Carbohydrates of the prion glycoproteins responsible for a group of neurodegenerative diseases were sequenced for the first time thanks to a highly sensitive technique. Prion diseases are a group of rapidly progressive, fatal and infectious neurodegenerative disorders affecting both humans and animals: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or ‘mad cow’ disease is one of the most famous since in 1996 scientists found that the agent responsible for the disease in cows, is the same agent responsible for the so-called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob…
A gene linked to unusually long lifespans in humans protects brain stem cells from the harmful effects of stress, according to a new study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. Studies of humans who live longer than 100 years have shown that many share an unusual version of a gene called Forkhead box protein O3 (FOXO3). That discovery led Dr. Jihye Paik, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, and her colleagues to investigate how this gene…
Working with colleagues from Germany and the US, researchers at Leipzig University have achieved a breakthrough in research into how cancer cells spread. In experiments, the team of biophysicists led by Professor Josef Alfons Käs, Steffen Grosser and Jürgen Lippoldt demonstrated for the first time how cells deform in order to move in dense tumour tissues and squeeze past neighbouring cells. The researchers found that motile cells work together to fluidise tumour tissue. Käs led the research project in cooperation…
New MHH research collaboration aims to develop novel treatment for bacterial lung infections using universal human stem cells Healing the body with cells – this is the ambitious goal of scientists at Hannover Medical School (MHH). With this in mind, Professor Dr. Nico Lachmann and Dr. Robert Zweigerdt have initiated a research collaboration and license agreement with the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk A/S, to combine academic knowhow with the translational power of the industry. The overall aim of the endeavor…
– made fast, accurate, and cheap The Wyss Institute’s eRapid electrochemical sensor technology now enables sensitive, specific and multiplexed detection of blood biomarkers at low cost. Many life-threatening medical conditions, such as sepsis, which is triggered by blood-borne pathogens, cannot be detected accurately and quickly enough to initiate the right course of treatment. In patients that have been infected by an unknown pathogen and progress to overt sepsis, every additional hour that an effective antibiotic cannot be administered significantly increases…
A preclinical study at the University Hospital Tübingen shows promising effects in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) caused by non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) At the University Hospital of Tübingen, the preclinical study by Dr. Daniel Dauch and Prof. Dr. Lars Zender, Medical Director of Medical Oncology and Pneumology, led to the extremely positive preclinical results. The research groups pursued a new therapeutic approach, which they themselves refer to as “induced lipotoxicity,” aimed at overcoming treatment resistance in hepatocellular carcinoma. The new study with…
Findings on cancer medication reveal protein regulation mechanism Immunomodulatory drugs, including the Contergan derivatives lenalidomide and pomalidomide, have significantly improved the therapy of hematologic malignancies such as multiple myeloma. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now further decoded the mode of action in this class of medications. At the same time, they identified new innovative targeted cancer therapies. The drug thalidomide was sold as a sedative under the trade name Contergan in the 1950s and 1960s. At…
Bacteria can survive antibiotic treatment even without antibiotic resistance by slowing down their metabolism and going into a type of deep sleep. A research team funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation reveals the changes bacteria undergo to reach this “persister” state. Resistant bacteria evade the effects of antibiotics by becoming less susceptible, for example by breaking the drugs down. But some bacteria have another survival strategy: they withstand treatment by going into a sleep-like state that enables them to…
The new therapeutic approach is based on shutting down the viral hepatitis B genome located in the nucleus of infected liver cells. Upon infection of the liver cell, the viral genome is transformed inside the nucleus into a closed circular DNA molecule. This deoxyribonucleic acid is a stable molecule known as covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) and serves as the template for the production of new viruses. The cccDNA represents the central reservoir of the hepatitis B viruses and enables…
Scientists are working to expand the way they have made immune cells fight tumors from a small handful of cancers to a wide array of them. Scientists are hoping advances in cancer research could lead to a day when a patient’s own immune system could be used to fight and destroy a wide range of tumors. Cancer immunotherapy has some remarkable successes, but its effectiveness has been limited to a relatively small handful of cancers. In APL Bioengineering, by AIP…
An online database has been created for the Meckel Collections in cooperation with the IT Service Center (ITZ) at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. The collections are housed at the Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology in the Faculty of Medicine and contain around 8,000 medical and zoological specimens. Some of the items date back to the 18th century and are unique and extremely valuable from a medical and historical perspective. “For the first time, all of the information about an…
Trigger for autoimmune diseases and cancer of the lymph node found Autoimmune diseases, in which the body’s own immune system attacks healthy tissue, can be life-threatening and can impact all organs. A research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now found a possible cause for these self-destructive immune system attacks: a hyperactive RANK protein on the surface of B cells. The research opens the door to new therapeutic possibilities. The immune system can be a mixed blessing:…
Where do the greatest risks of infection lurk? How can you protect yourself and others even better? Scientists all over the world are working to expand knowledge about Covid-19 – including at Empa. Researchers are now using measurements and simulations to take a close look at cable cars and cabins in ski resorts. Covid-19 is difficult to assess, and complex mathematical models to quantify infection risks are ultimately attempts to approximate reality – also in the case of ski resorts…
Scientists made use of new scientific technology to investigate the so-called stress axis that runs from the brain down to the adrenal glands. In particular, they uncovered numerous changes that occur in single cells along this axis as chronic stress continually prompts the adrenals to secrete the stress hormone, cortisol, and they found a new subpopulation of cells that aids and abets the stress response in these glands. Their findings may be relevant to a number of stress-related diseases from…
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