List group publishes their results with “Nature”. Aliphatic molecules are important for industry, but usually not very reactive. A new catalyst from Mülheim has changed that. The research group of Prof. Benjamin List has published their results with “Nature”. So-called aliphatic hydrocarbons play a major role in the chemical industry, but are not easy to handle from a scientific point of view. These special molecules form precursors of desired substances in many important reactions – for example in the production…
German Researcher at the Leibniz Institute DSMZ in Braunschweig develops new method for the derivatization of antibiotics. Professor Dr Yvonne Mast, Head of the Department of Bioresources for Bioeconomy and Health Research, and her working group at the Leibniz Institute DSMZ-German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures have developed a new method for the derivatization of antibiotics. Antibiotics are medicinally important compounds often produced by microorganisms. Such natural substances often have a chemically complex structure and hence can be difficult…
New discovery contradicts textbook models. Many important reactions related to climate and environmental processes take place where water molecules interface with air. For example, the evaporation of ocean water plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and climate science. Understanding these reactions is crucial to efforts to mitigate the human effect on our planet. Textbook models will now need to be re-drawn after a team of researchers has found that water molecules at the surface of salt water are organized…
… providing insights into evolution, biofuels, cellular aging. You may be familiar with yeast as the organism content to turn carbs into products like bread and beer when left to ferment in the dark. In these cases, exposure to light can hinder or even spoil the process. In a new study published in Current Biology, researchers in Georgia Tech’s School of Biological Sciences have engineered one of the world’s first strains of yeast that may be happier with the lights…
Being able to observe micro-organisms and their cellular components is key to understanding fundamental processes that go on inside cells—and thus potentially developing new medical treatments. Microbiologists and biophysicists from the University of Bonn have now developed a method that makes the high-throughput process for observing molecules five times faster, enabling insights to be gained into hitherto unknown cellular functions. If our skin spends too long exposed to UV rays, e.g. from the sun, it can cause mutations in our…
The Leibniz Institute on Aging – Fritz-Lipmann Institute (FLI) developed an assessment system for fish health. Jena. The welfare of fish – that is what drives Dr. Beate Hoppe and her team every day. The animal keepers, scientists and veterinarians at the Leibniz Institute for Ageing Research (FLI) in Jena have spent six years meticulously collecting and evaluating data and have now published their findings in the Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science (JAALAS). What has long…
Preclinical findings reported in the journal Cell could lead to a new type of immunotherapy. According to preclinical research published online on Jan. 10 in Cell, one of the world’s premier scientific journals, researchers with City of Hope, one of the largest cancer treatment and research organizations in the United States, have discovered that a type of immune cell in the human body known to be important for allergy and other immune responses can also attack cancer. Furthermore, these cells, called…
Current study reveals how machine learning, data integration and AI contribute to better strategies in the fight against pathogens. To combat viruses, bacteria and other pathogens, synthetic biology offers new technological approaches whose performance is being validated in experiments. Researchers from the Würzburg Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research and the Helmholtz AI Cooperative applied data integration and artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a machine learning approach that can predict the efficacy of CRISPR technologies more accurately than before. The…
The widely used dry-cleaning and degreasing solvent perc can be converted to useful chemicals by a new clean, safe and inexpensive procedure. The Kobe University discovery using on-demand UV activation may open the path to upcycling perc and thus contribute to a more sustainable society. Organic synthesis is the production of useful chemicals, such as drugs, from other available chemicals. In general, chemists use source materials to create simple building blocks, such as carbonate esters, and combine them to increasingly…
… augment infection of lung cells. The virus has rediscovered an entry pathway into lung cells that has been used by earlier variants and that is important for the development of pneumonia. Despite the end of the pandemic, COVID-19 continues to pose a serious health threat. Most individuals have established robust immune protection and do not develop severe disease but the infection can still lead to marked and sometimes long-lasting disease symptoms. In the late summer of 2023 a new…
In collaboration with 12 partners from 6 countries, Jena University Hospital is establishing the Antivirus Pandemic Preparedness EuropeAn pLatform (APPEAL), a European research initiative aimed at enhancing preparedness for future pandemics. This EU funded collaboration will establish a comprehensive program for the development of broad-spectrum antiviral drugs within a five year time frame ensuring drug affordability and accessibility to low income countries. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the profound impact of the emergence of dangerous viruses. While the World Health…
Important Membrane transport mechanism in pathogenic bacteria researched. Some bacterial membrane transporters work almost like freight elevators to transport substances through the cell membrane into the interior of the cell. The transporter itself spans the bacterial membrane. Like a forklift, a soluble protein outside the bacterium transports the substance to the “elevator” and unloads its cargo there. The freight elevator transports it to the inside of the cell, in other words to another floor. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn…
Scientists examine how friction forces propel development in a marine organism. As the potter works the spinning wheel, the friction between their hands and the soft clay helps them shape it into all kinds of forms and creations. In a fascinating parallel, sea squirt oocytes (immature egg cells) harness friction within various compartments in their interior to undergo developmental changes after conception. A study from the Heisenberg group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), published in Nature…
Certain combinations of gut bacteria protect stem cell transplantation patients. After stem cell transplantation, the donated immune cells sometimes attack the patients’ bodies. This is known as graft versus host disease or GvHD. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Universitätsklinikum Regensburg (UKR) have shown that GvHD is much less common when certain microbes are present in the gut. In the future, it may be possible to deliberately bring about this protective composition of the microbiome. Stem…
Skeletal editing employed to enlarge molecule rings. Molecules with a central ring system play an important role in the search for active ingredients for new pharmaceutical products – and it is important that the rings should have the correct size if the desired product is to be manufactured as efficiently as possible. For this purpose, an international team of chemists led by Prof. Frank Glorius (University of Münster) and Prof. Osvaldo Gutierrez (Texas A&M University, USA) have developed a precise…
Unknown germs are a common occurrence in hospitals. Researchers at the University of Basel have spent many years collecting and analyzing them. They have identified many new species of bacteria, some of which are significant for clinical practice. Bacterial infections can be treated more efficiently if the cause of the disease is known. In most cases, all it takes to identify a pathogen is an analysis in a medical laboratory. Sometimes, however, the standard methods are insufficient – for example,…
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