Synchrotron light sources were originally built to study particles. Today, they are even used in the fight against COVID-19. The projects are as diverse as the fields of the synchrotron users, who come from universities, research institutions and companies like BioNTech. Information by the German Committee Research with Synchrotron Radiation (KFS). To fight COVID-19, we need vaccines and medicine, and to develop these, we need to know the SARS-CoV-2 virus in detail. The virus cannot be seen with a normal…
A new corona test developed at the University Hospital Bonn can analyze a large number of swabs simultaneously using sequencing technology and has a similarly high sensitivity as the common qPCR test. The innovative method offers great potential, especially for systematic testing in daycare centers, schools or companies. Today, the results of the study on the new Corona test have been published in the renowned journal “Nature Biotechnology“. In addition to vaccination, systematic testing of the population remains of central…
New method to visualize anatomical structures including the products of an earthworm’s metabolism. Earthworms experience constant chemical interactions with bacteria, fungi, plants and small invertebrates across soil ecosystems. Even within their tissues, earthworms harbor symbiotic microbes and small animal parasites that trigger internal metabolic responses such as innate immunity. To reveal the fundamental processes that enable animal-microbe symbioses to form and persist, we have to study their metabolic interactions in situ. By combining novel imaging techniques, a team of researchers…
Tuberculosis is one of the top ten causes of death worldwide, infecting about one-quarter of the world’s population. Although it is treatable, the rise of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis poses a major threat to global health security, and has been declared by the World Health Organization as a global health emergency. Reduced access to diagnosis and treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to dramatically increase the number of tuberculosis infections. This will set global efforts to tackle the disease back several…
A three-dimensional atlas of the bumblebee brain is now available. It will allow to even better research how nerve cells are interconnected and how they process information. The buff-tailed bumblebee Bombus terrestris is one of the most common bumblebee species in Europe. It is not only active in nature as a pollinator – humans also use it in greenhouses and foil tunnels to get good harvests of tomatoes or strawberries. The buff-tailed bumblebee is also used in science: “Basic research…
How immune cells are lured to the brain in encephalitis. Certain viruses can cause inflammation of the meninges or even the entire brain, so-called viral encephalitis. In addition to the rabies virus and the West Nile virus, these also include the vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) in the mouse model. The immune cells needed to fight the infection must first reach the brain from the periphery of the body. To do this, the immune system produces messenger substances as attractants. Scientists…
Multiplexed gene activation system allows for four to six times the activation capacity of current CRISPR technology, with simultaneous activation of up to seven genes at once. In a study in Nature Plants, Yiping Qi, associate professor of Plant Science at the University of Maryland (UMD), introduces a new and improved CRISPR 3.0 system in plants, focusing on gene activation instead of traditional gene editing. This third generation CRISPR system focuses on multiplexed gene activation, meaning that it can boost…
…show promise in quest for renewable carbon-based fuels. Researchers report that small quantities of useful molecules such as hydrocarbons are produced when carbon dioxide and water react in the presence of light and a silver nanoparticle catalyst. Their validation study – made possible through the use of a high-resolution analytical technique – could pave the way for CO2-reduction technologies that allow industrial-scale production of renewable carbon-based fuels. The study, led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign chemistry professor Prashant Jain, probes…
Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, together with epidemiologist Lone Simonsen from Roskilde University form part of the panel advising the Danish government on how to tackle the different infection-spreading situations we have all seen unfold over the past year. Researchers have modelled the spread of infections under a variety of scenarios, and the Coronavirus has proven to not follow the older models of disease spreading. An increasingly varied picture of its behaviour and thus its impact…
A University of Bristol-led team of international scientists with an interest in protoliving technologies, has today published research which paves the way to building new semi-autonomous devices with potential applications in miniaturized soft robotics, microscale sensing and bioengineering. Micro-actuators are devices that can convert signals and energy into mechanically driven movement in small-scale structures and are important in a wide range of advanced microscale technologies. Normally, micro-actuators rely on external changes in bulk properties such as pH and temperature to…
Versatile, fast and reliable… During the continued progression of the Corona pandemic, rapid, inexpensive, and reliable tests will become increasingly important to determine whether people have the associated antibodies – either through infection or vaccination. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now developed such a rapid antibody test. It provides the result in only eight minutes; the aim is to further reduce the process time to four minutes. There are currently more than 20 different test procedures…
New findings on magnetic sensing in birds are presented by an international team of researchers led by the Universities of Oldenburg and Oxford. The results are published in the journal Nature. Humans perceive the world around them with five senses – vision, hearing, taste, smell and touch. Many other animals are also able to sense the Earth’s magnetic field. For some time, a collaboration of biologists, chemists and physicists centred at the Universities of Oldenburg (Germany) and Oxford (UK) have…
The spinal cord is an important component of our central nervous system: it connects the brain with the rest of the body and plays a crucial part in coordinating our sensations with our actions. Falls, violence, disease – various forms of trauma can cause irreversible damage to the spinal cord, leading to paralysis, sometimes even death. Although many vertebrates, including humans, are unable to recover from a spinal cord injury, some animals stand out. For instance, the axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum),…
International research team describes complete reaction path for electrocatalytic hydrogen generation. The way in which a compound inspired by nature produces hydrogen has now been described in detail for the first time by an international research team from the University of Jena, Germany and the University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy. These findings are the foundation for the energy-efficient production of hydrogen as a sustainable energy source. Nature as a model There are naturally occurring microorganisms that produce hydrogen, using special enzymes…
To understand what role an individual gene plays in development, degeneration, and disease, biologists have, for a hundred years, been using a trick of nature: While in principle, the genome in all cells of an organism is the same, mutations can and do arise in individual cells. These mutations make a cell different from its neighbors, and the organism forms a “genetic mosaic.” Now, Simon Hippenmeyer, Professor at IST Austria, has advanced genetic mosaic analysis, making almost all genes in…
Heidelberg researchers model complex metabolic disturbance. A rare genetic defect that affects the so-called ALG2 gene can cause serious metabolic diseases in humans. It does so through the defective formation of proteins and sugar molecules. Until now, its rareness and complexity made it difficult to study this congenital glycosylation disorder. A research team led by Prof. Dr Joachim Wittbrodt and Dr Thomas Thumberger from the Centre for Organismal Studies (COS) of Heidelberg University has finally succeeded in introducing the underlying…
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