Scientists at the University of Basel and the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) have discovered why acute leukemias with the same genetic abnormality vary in their aggressiveness based on their cellular origin. They found that the cancer inducing alteration is particularly devastating if it occurs in early hematopoietic stem cells expressing certain genes involved in cell migration and tissue invasion.
Chemists from the Universities of Basel and Zurich have come one step closer to generating energy from sunlight: for the first time, they were able to reproduce one of the crucial phases of natural photosynthesis with artificial molecules.
The inflammasome plays an important role in our body‘s immune defense. This protein complex initiates an emergency program in the immune cells when invaded by a pathogen. In “Nature Communications”, a research team from the University of Basel’s Biozentrum reports that a specific inflammasome protein forms long filaments to amplify the inflammatory reaction.
Reliable information can be obtained on the progression of dementias by measuring specific proteins in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid. A test of this kind is especially significant to the development of new therapies.
An international consortium led by researchers at the University of Basel has developed a method to precisely alter the quantum mechanical states of electrons within an array of quantum boxes.
Professor Christoph Gerber of the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and the Department of Physics at the University of Basel has been awarded the 2016 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience together with Professor Gerd Binnig (formerly of IBM Zurich Research Laboratory) and Professor Calvin Quate (Stanford University). The award honors their invention and creation of the first atomic force microscope 30 years ago.
Computer scientists at the University of Basel have developed a new method for conducting image and video database searches based on hand-drawn sketches. The user draws a sketch on a tablet or interactive paper, and the system searches for a matching image in the database.
The structural biologist Ada Yonath from Israel decoded the structure of ribosomes and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for it in 2009. On June 15 she will be speaking at the "Excellence Symposium 2016" at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, organized by stipendiaries of the Fellowship for Excellence program.
Learning leaves its mark on the brain. Scientists from the Biozentrum at the University of Basel have now discovered that the protein Copine-6 strengthens the connections between nerve cells, accelerating the flow of information and thereby forming the basis for learning and memory.