The mechanisms by which the body measures temperature and regulates its own body heat are vital, but still poorly understood. The discovery of the first heat sensor on nerve cells in the skin, for which the U.S. molecular biologist David Julius received this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine, was therefore pioneering. However, a very similar heat sensor, the protein TRPM2, is active not only in the…
The skin bacterium Staphylococcus aureus often develops antibiotic resistance. It can then cause infections that are difficult to treat. Researchers at the University of Bonn have uncovered an ingenious way in which a certain strain of Staphylococcus aureus protects itself against the important antibiotic vancomycin. The results have now been published in the journal Microbiology Spectrum.
The first investigational transplantation of a genetically engineered, nonhuman kidney to a human body was recently completed at NYU Langone Health—marking a major step forward in potentially utilizing an alternative supply of organs for people facing life-threatening disease.
Researchers at Durham University are working on a new infrared light therapy that might have the potential to help people with dementia. In the approach, people wear a specially adapted helmet which delivers infrared light deep into the brain for six-minutes per treatment. This stimulates mitochondria that generate most of the chemical energy needed to power the biochemical reaction in the…
Blood transfusions save lives, yet the precious fluid is in desperately short supply around the globe. But what if transfusions don’t always require blood? A new mathematical model of the body’s interacting physiological and biochemical processes – including blood vessel expansion, blood thickening and flow-rate changes in response to the transfusion of red blood cells – shows that…
Using cutting-edge genomic sequencing techniques, researchers at the University of Oxford have identified almost all the genomic variation that gives people resistance to 13 of the most common tuberculosis (TB) drug treatments. The Comprehensive Resistance Prediction for Tuberculosis International Consortium (CRyPTIC) research project has collected the largest ever global dataset of clinical M.…
Researchers at the national research institute for mathematics and computer science in the Netherlands (CWI), together with a colleague from Stichting Interuniversitair Micro-Elektronica Centrum (IMEC) in Eindhoven, have achieved a mathematical breakthrough in the computation of so-called spiking neural networks. Thanks to this breakthrough, special chips that are suitable for this artificial…
Scientists at Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) and École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have discovered a highly potent monoclonal antibody that targets the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and is effective at neutralizing all variants of concern identified to date, including the delta variant. Their findings are published in the journal Cell Reports.
The immune system protects the body from cancer. To protect healthy body cells from its own immune system, they have developed a protective shield: the protein CD47 is a so called "don’t eat me" signal, which tells the immune cells to stand back. Tumor cells exploit this CD47-based protection strategy for evading the immune system, by increasing presentation of CD47 on their cell…
The Covid-19 crisis that gripped England between September 2020 and June 2021 can be thought of as a series of overlapping epidemics, rather than a single event, say researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and the German Cancer Research Center.
Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have developed a completely new stimulation method, using ultra-thin microelectrodes, to combat severe pain. This provides effective and personalised pain relief without the common side effects from pain relief drugs. The study, which was conducted on rats, has been published in the research journal Science Advances.
Researchers at the DZNE and the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) have identified molecules in the blood that can indicate impending dementia. Their findings, which are presented in the scientific journal “EMBO Molecular Medicine”, are based on human studies and laboratory experiments. Various university hospitals across Germany were also involved in the investigations.
Hope for a future without fear of Covid-19 comes down to circulating antibodies and memory B cells. Unlike circulating antibodies, which peak soon after vaccination or infection only to fade a few months later, memory B cells can stick around to prevent severe disease for decades. And they evolve over time, learning to produce successively more potent “memory antibodies” that are better at…
“An artificial uterus – the incubator 2.0 – will become a reality within 10 years,” says Jasmijn Kok, one of the founders of Juno, a spin-off from the Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands. Together with researchers from the department of Industrial Design from the University, including her twin sister Lyla Kok, she wants to bring a technology that increases the chances of…
After infection with SARS-CoV-2, where does the immune system store the memory to provide long-term protection against reinfection? Though numerous studies have examined blood to track immune responses to SARS-CoV-2, a new study of Covid survivors shows that the memory of the infection is primarily stored in T and B cells within the lung and the lymph nodes surrounding the lung.
Researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and Pulmobiotics S.L have created the first ‘living medicine’ to treat antibiotic-resistant bacteria growing on the surfaces of medical implants. The researchers created the treatment by removing a common bacteria’s ability to cause disease and repurposing it to attack harmful microbes instead.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have examined long-term outcomes in patients who received pacemaker implantations after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) through their groin. The result showed no significant difference in mortality for the patients with pacemakers compared to those without. The study is published in the journal JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions.
Many of the organ systems found in animals exhibit highly complex structures, which are essential for their various functions. How such structures develop during embryonic development is a central question in biology. Physicists led by Erwin Frey (Professor of Statistical and Biological Physics at LMU Munich) and Andreas Bausch (Professor of Cellular Biophysics at the Technical University of…
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021 was awarded jointly to two scientists who made important discoveries regarding our receptors for temperature and touch. Our ability to sense heat, cold and touch is essential for survival and underpins our interaction with the world around us. In our daily lives we take these sensations for granted, but how are nerve impulses initiated so that…
Researchers at the University of Southampton have invented a new way to generate human cartilage tissue from stem cells. The technique could pave the way for the development of a much-needed new treatment for people with cartilage damage. Cartilage acts as a shock absorber in joints, but it is susceptible to damage through daily wear-and-tear, or trauma from sports injuries and falls.
Research led by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) on the interaction between prostate cancer cells and the tumour microenvironment has shed more light on the propensity of some types of prostate cancer to metastasize to bone more readily than other types.
Classic antidepressants could help improve modern cancer treatments. They slowed the growth of pancreatic and colon cancers in mice, and when combined with immunotherapy, they even stopped the cancer growth long-term. In some cases the tumors disappeared completely, researchers at the University of Zurich (UZH) and University Hospital Zurich (USZ) have found. Their findings will now be tested in…
If the suspicion of Alzheimer's disease creeps up, those affected must prepare themselves for lengthy and complex procedures until the case is clear. A team from Empa and the Cantonal Hospital of St. Gallen is now in the process of developing a blood test that will enable a reliable diagnosis using atomic force microscopy (AFM).
When it comes to getting healthy and reducing mortality risk, increasing physical activity and improving fitness appear to be superior to weight loss.
Hokkaido University scientists and colleagues in Japan have found a way that could help some patients overcome resistance to an immunotherapy treatment for cancer. The approach, proven in mice experiments, was reported in the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer.