MHH research team uses telomerase for oxygen detoxification in heart muscle cells. According to an estimate by the Robert Koch Institute, around 510,000 people in Germany were newly diagnosed with cancer last year. Thanks to improved therapies, cancer diseases can be treated more and more successfully – but what causes lasting damage to the tumours often also has severe side effects. The highly effective therapeutics from the group of anthracyclines, for example, prevent cancer cells from dividing. At the same…
Researchers have discovered a novel and druggable insulin inhibitory receptor, named inceptor. The latest study from Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen, the Technical University of Munich and the German Center for Diabetes Research is a significant milestone for diabetes research as the scientific community celebrates 100 years of insulin and 50 years of insulin receptor discovery. The blocking of inceptor function leads to an increased sensitisation of the insulin signaling pathway in pancreatic beta cells. This might allow protection and regeneration of…
Tiny devices use samples taken directly from patients to combine in vivo and in vitro testing. Despite cancer being a leading cause of death worldwide, treatment options for many types of cancers remain limited. This is partly due to the in vitro tools used to model cancers, which cannot adequately predict the behavior of a cancer or its sensitivity to drugs. Further, animal models, like mice, biologically differ from humans in ways that play a critical role in immunotherapy, and…
Pathogenic bacteria in humans are developing resistance to antibiotics much faster than expected. Now, computational research at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, shows that one reason could be significant genetic transfer between bacteria in our ecosystems and to humans. This work has also led to new tools for resistance researchers. According to the World Health Organisation, antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest threats to global health, food safety and development. It already causes over 33,000 deaths a year in…
Watching the brain at work and studying its functions – this is now possible at the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors (IfADo) by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The new three tesla MRI scanner will intensify interdisciplinary research at IfADo for the benefit and protection of working people. With the MRI scanner, researchers at IfADo will comprehensively examine brain structure and functions in different contexts. For example, they will focus on how the brain changes with age…
Newly identified pathway explains why antihistamine drugs often don’t work to control severe itch. In addition to a skin rash, many eczema sufferers also experience chronic itching, but sometimes that itching can become torturous. Worse, antihistamines — the standard treatment for itching and allergy — often don’t help. New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that allergens in the environment often are to blame for episodes of acute itch in eczema patients, and that the…
Taurine, which helps the body digest fats and oils, could offer treatment benefit Scientists studying the body’s natural defenses against bacterial infection have identified a nutrient–taurine–that helps the gut recall prior infections and kill invading bacteria, such as Klebsiella pneumoniae (Kpn). The finding, published in the journal Cell by scientists from five institutes of the National Institutes of Health, could aid efforts seeking alternatives to antibiotics. Scientists know that microbiota–the trillions of beneficial microbes living harmoniously inside our gut–can protect…
In experiments in mouse tissues and human cells, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they have found that removing a membrane that lines the back of the eye may improve the success rate for regrowing nerve cells damaged by blinding diseases. The findings are specifically aimed at discovering new ways to reverse vision loss caused by glaucoma and other diseases that affect the optic nerve, the information highway from the eye to the brain. “The idea of restoring vision to someone…
The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Digital Health and Patient Safety has analyzed previously published scientific publications on open innovation in the context of medical and pharmaceutical research. The results of the study was accepted for publication in the Frontiers in Pharmacology. Open innovation (OI) in the context of medical and pharmaceutical research began to appear in the scientific literature in mid-2000s and has been steady on the rise. This is revealed by the analysis of around 380 relevant scientific publications, conducted…
Method presents the immune system with several different coronaviruses at once. The SARS-CoV-2 virus that is causing the COVID-19 pandemic is just one of many different viruses in the coronavirus family. Many of these are circulating in populations of animals like bats and have the potential to “jump” into the human population, just as SARS-CoV-2 did. Researchers in the laboratory of Pamela Björkman, the David Baltimore Professor of Biology and Bioengineering, are working on developing vaccines for a wide range…
In older people with type 1 diabetes, damage to the retina may be linked to memory problems and other cognitive conditions. As they age, people with diabetes are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive disorders than are people without diabetes. Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center now have shown that routine eye imaging can identify changes in the retina that may be associated with cognitive disorders in older people with type 1 diabetes. These results may open up…
Light-controlled genes could reveal how gut bacteria impact health. Baylor College of Medicine researcher Meng Wang had already shown that bacteria that make a metabolite called colanic acid (CA) could extend the lifespan of worms in her lab by as much as 50%, but her collaboration with Rice University synthetic biologist Jeffrey Tabor is providing tools to answer the bigger question of how the metabolite imparts longer life. In a study published in eLife, Wang, Tabor and colleagues showed they…
NIH BRAIN Initiative scientists used machine learning to redesign a bacterial ‘Venus flytrap’ protein that can monitor brain serotonin levels in real time. Serotonin is a neurochemical that plays a critical role in the way the brain controls our thoughts and feelings. For example, many antidepressants are designed to alter serotonin signals sent between neurons. In an article in Cell, National Institutes of Health-funded researchers described how they used advanced genetic engineering techniques to transform a bacterial protein into a…
Sixfold increase in risk A research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has quantified the effects of an infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) on the development of cervical cancer. Their results show that the risk of developing cervical cancer is six times higher in women who are infected with HIV. Southern and Eastern Africa are particularly affected. According to WHO statistics, cervical cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer for women. In 2018 an…
Finding reveals potential for spread to humans Reston ebolavirus (RESTV) should be considered a livestock pathogen with potential to affect other mammals, including people, according to National Institutes of Health scientists. The caution comes from a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in which the scientists found that experimental piglets infected with RESTV developed severe respiratory disease and shed the virus from the upper respiratory tract. RESTV can infect humans but is not known to cause…
In the joint CORSA project, SARS-CoV-2 and further respiratory viruses on surfaces and skin are to be inactivated by using UVC light. The project team is developing special UVC LEDs for this purpose and is investigating parameters such as wavelengths, irradiation doses and virus habitats. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research is supporting the three-year project from 2021 with a total of three million euros. Like bacteria and fungi, viruses can be inactivated by UVC light. However, for…
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