BELA (BepiColombo Laser Altimeter) has been developed by a Swiss-German-Spanish team led by the University of Bern. The instrument is designed to measure the…

Our novel concept of a pressure measurement using an ionisation manometer with decoupled electron source is based on the idea to maintain the classical, well-established geometry of hot cathode ionisation manometers for UHV/XHV, but to remove the heat-generating filament and to relocate the electron generation for the gauge into the room-temperature environment, where heat generation does not disturb.
This innovative solution was mainly developed for UHV/XHV pressure measurements under cryogenic conditions. However, it may be easily applied in any vacuum installations which are operated e.g. under high or medium vacuum and higher temperatures.

Although magnetism has been known from ancient times, a fundamental understanding of the origin of this physical phenomenon has been achieved only in the last…

An international team led by Laura Pérez, an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn, also…

Solid state physics offers a rich variety of intriguing phenomena, several of which are not yet fully understood. Experiments with fermionic atoms in optical…

After a decade of travel in outer space to reach the comet Chury, and two years spent studying it, the Rosetta mission comes to an end this Friday. The mission…

The scientists from Tohoku University, the University of Tokyo, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and the University of Tsukuba, used the Atacama…

DNA lesions occur in all living organisms. As accumulating DNA damage poses a risk for cell survival, cells harbour sophisticated mechanisms for repairing such lesions. The kinase ATR (“ATM and Rad3 related”) is a key player in triggering the cellular response to double strand DNA breaks called “DNA Damage Response” (“DDR”) thereby enabling DNA repair and thus promoting cell survical.

As cancer cells are often characterized by defects in various DNA repair processes and/or DNA damages, intact ATR-signalling (and subsequent DNA-repair processes) is particularly crucial for the viability of such cancer cells.

In fact, blocking DDR, preferably by inhibiting ATR has become an attractive therapeutic concept.

Correspondingly, at present, two ATR inhibitors (VX-970 and AZD5738; for ref. see “Relevant Publications”) have already entered clinical studies.

However, both with the developmental risk associated with these compounds, the need for compounds displaying an improved safety-/efficacy-profile and the large number of patients, there is a huge interest in advanced ATR inhibitors.

The present invention thus relates to advanced ATR antagonists which have proven to be effective in various in cellular assays (both on its own and in combination with cisplatin). Furthermore they show a promising ADME-profile as deducted from predictive ADME modelling and an improved solulibility in relation to the aforementioned compounds.

Selective Enhancement of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX) has proven to be a powerful tool for idenfying functional oligonucleotides which bind to selected targets. Here, in an iterative process, a pool of single stranded oligonucleotides is contacted with a target structure (e.g. a protein), high-affinity oligonucleotides are then isolated, amplified and again put into contact with the target until, eventually, an ideal oligonucleotide has been obtained.
An International and a European patent application are pending. On behalf of University of Bonn, PROvendis offers licenses for commercial use as well a research collaboration with licensing option.

By cascading two DOEs are optical elements (lens, axicon, phase shifter, spiral phase plate) obtained, whose optical power can be adjusted continuously by just rotating one DOE with respect to the other.

The growing share of renewable energy sources leads to wider load fluctuations in power grids, necessitating new concepts and ways to avoid overload. What is…

Optical quantum computers are what people are pinning their hopes on for tomorrow’s computer technology – whether for tap-proof data encryption, ultrafast…

An international team headed by HZB scientist Prof. Michael Giersig has recently demonstrated for these applications that networks of metallic mesh possessing…

A novel mesh generation method enables a fast, fully automatic generation of high-quality meshes even for complex geometrical structures.

If we had to choose the most important and newsworthy piece of science news for 2016, the discovery of gravitational waves would have every chance of winning…

The telescope—known as FAST—uses a data system developed at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy (ICRAR) in Perth and the European Southern Observatory…