Immune system: B cells teach T cells which targets must not be attacked. Immune cells must learn not to attack the body itself. A team of researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) has discovered a previously unknown mechanism behind this: other immune cells, the B cells, contribute to the “training” of the T cells in the thymus gland. If this process fails, autoimmune diseases can develop. In children and adolescents,…
New Model Identifies Potential Therapeutic Target. Scientists at the University of Zurich have developed an innovative neural cell culture model, shedding light on the intricate mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration. Their research pinpointed a misbehaving protein as a promising therapeutic target in the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Neurodegenerative diseases cause some of the neurons in our brains to die, resulting in different symptoms depending on the brain region affected. In amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), neurons in…
Max Planck Researchers find new targets for improving biocatalysts. Nitrogenases are considered promising candidates for the sustainable enzymatic production of ammonia and carbon compounds. Unfortunately, one bottleneck in this complex process, the supply of electrons to the enzymes, has remained a mystery until now. Now a team at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg has discovered two essential electron carriers which play a key role in determining the performance of iron (Fe) nitrogenase, thus opening up new…
Testing method can analyze blood samples twice as quickly as other techniques. University of Waterloo researchers have developed a new blood testing method that can detect potent opioids much faster than traditional approaches and potentially save lives. The method, the latest effort by Waterloo researchers and entrepreneurs to lead health innovation in Canada, can simultaneously analyze 96 blood samples that could contain opioids such as fentanyl in under three minutes – twice as quickly as other techniques. “The difference between…
Saarbrücken-based research project on new drugs against infectious diseases receives support from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Tuberculosis and malaria are among the deadliest infectious diseases worldwide and are increasingly spreading, not least due to climate change. In both cases, antimicrobial resistance renders established active substances ineffective. To ensure that effective drugs are still available in the future, researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) are working together with Evotec, a leading company for drug research and…
Century-old tuberculosis vaccine extends survival of mice with hard-to-treat liver cancer. A UC Davis Health study found that a single dose of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), the vaccine for tuberculosis (TB), reduced liver tumor burden and extended the survival of mice with liver cancer. The study, published in Advanced Science, is the first to show the promising effects of the vaccine in treating liver cancer. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common type of liver cancer. It is also the third…
Researchers from Jena uncover new mechanism for regulating cell division in the bacterial pathogen Klebsiella. Klebsiella pneumoniae is one of the most common and most dangerous bacterial pathogens impacting humans, causing infections of the gastrointestinal tract, pneumonia, wound infections and even blood poisoning. With the aim of discovering therapeutically exploitable weaknesses in Klebsiella, a research team from the Balance of the Microverse Cluster of Excellence at the University of Jena, Germany has taken a close look at the molecular biology…
To synthesize potential drugs or natural products, you need natural substances in specific mirror-image variants and with a high degree of purity. For the first time, chemists at the University of Bonn have succeeded in producing all eight possible variants of polypropionate building blocks from a single starting material in a relatively straightforward process. Their work has now been published in the prestigious journal “Angewandte Chemie.” Polypropionates are natural products that can help save lives. They are needed to make…
Project leader Dr.-Ing. Abdolrahman Omidinia Anarkoli and working group leader Prof. Dr. Ing. Laura De Laporte at the DWI – Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, have been awarded a Proof of Concept Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for their project “AnisoPlate”. Their aim is to investigate the technical and commercial potential of their newly developed device. With this technology, they want to produce three-dimensional, hydrogel-based human tissue models in high throughput that exhibit a controllable spatial orientation and…
… for diverse populations to tackle health disparities. Improved genetic tests more accurately assess disease risk regardless of genetic ancestry. To prevent an emerging genomic technology from contributing to health disparities, a scientific team funded by the National Institutes of Health has devised new ways to improve a genetic testing method called a polygenic risk score. Since polygenic risk scores have not been effective for all populations, the researchers recalibrated these genetic tests using ancestrally diverse genomic data. As reported…
Catalyzing Fine Chemicals in Future Using Iron & Co. At the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis in Rostock, Dr Johannes Fessler has developed new methods for the synthesis of drug precursors using catalysts made of iron, manganese and cobalt. Each of these three chemical elements has the potential to replace a number of noble metals that are commonly used in organic chemistry to catalyze fine chemicals. Platinum and palladium, for example, are expensive due to their rare occurrence, their extraction is…
Researchers expand ways to improve the selectivity of catalytic reactions. Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), Harvard Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, and Utrecht University have reported on a previously elusive way to improve the selectivity of catalytic reactions, adding a new method of increasing the efficacy of catalysts for a potentially wide range of applications in various industries including pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and much more. The research is published in Nature Catalysis. The chemical industry relies on catalysts for over 90 percent of its processes and…
Like humans struggling to get through the COVID-19 pandemic, bacterial cells need social distancing to thwart viruses. But in some situations, such as inside elevators or within the candy-colored bacterial structures known as “pink berries,” staying apart just isn’t feasible. Looking like spilled Nerds or Pop Rocks, the communal, multicellular pink berries litter the submerged surface of salt marshes in and around Woods Hole. New research conducted at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) uncovers evidence that a genetic mechanism may…
Neurological symptoms apparently not a result of SARS-CoV-2 infection of the brain. Scientists still are not sure how neurological symptoms arise in COVID-19. Is it because SARS-CoV-2 infects the brain? Or are these symptoms the result of inflammation in the rest of the body? A study by Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin has now produced evidence to support the latter theory. It was published today in the journal Nature Neuroscience.* Headaches, memory problems, and fatigue are just some of the neurological impacts that arise during coronavirus infection…
Researchers at the University of Regensburg, led by Professor Dr. Burkhard König, Institute of Organic Chemistry, have developed a new synthesis method: Light reaction on a water surface allows chemical syntheses without the use of organic solvents or other reaction additives. This makes the production of chemical products more efficient and environmentally friendly. The results of years of research have now been published in the internationally renowned journal Science. By forming chemical bonds between atoms, complex molecules such as those…
Scientists have observed so-called ‘roaming’ chemical reactions, those that at certain points move away from the lowest minimum energy ‘path of least resistance’, in highly excited energy states for the first time. Chemical reactions are supposed to occur along their minimum energy paths. In recent years, so-called roaming reactions that stray far from this path have begun to be observed, but only for chemical species in their ground state or, at most, their first excited state. However, researchers have now observed…
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