No structural overload and longer employment contracts: these are two of the key concerns of assistants brought to light by a survey of the Assistants’ Association (avuba). Initial solutions were discussed in talks between avuba and Vice President Thomas Grob.
The research group led by Prof. Alex Schier, Director of the University of Basel’s Biozentrum, has identified 30 genes associated with schizophrenia. The team was able to show which pathological changes in the brain and behavioral abnormalities are triggered by these genes.
The European Research Council has awarded two University of Basel scientists each a generously endowed ERC Advanced Grant. Biologist Professor Alex Schier and physicist Professor Ernst Meyer will each receive funding in the six figures for their innovative research projects.
Next week, the University of Basel is launching a new online course on the subject of “Entrepreneurship in Nonprofits.” The five-week course, accessible through the online platform FutureLearn, is free and conducted in English. Interested parties are invited to register.
Prof. Silvia Arber, neurobiologist at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, and the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) and new co-director of the FMI, has been awarded the International Prize 2018 of the Fyssen Foundation. Arber has received this recognition for her investigations on the development and function of neuronal circuits involved in motor control.
All organisms can be injured. But what happens when a plant is injured? How can it heal itself and avoid infections? An international research team from the University of Basel and Ghent University has reported on wound reaction mechanisms in plants in the journal Science. Their insights into plant immune systems could be used for new approaches to sustainable crop production.
It has long been thought that stress contributes to cancer progression. Scientists from the University of Basel and the University Hospital of Basel have deciphered the molecular mechanisms linking breast cancer metastasis with increased stress hormones. In addition, they found that synthetic derivatives of stress hormones, which are frequently used as anti-inflammatory in cancer therapy, decrease the efficacy of chemotherapy. These results come from patient-derived models of breast cancer in mice and may have implications for the treatment of patients with breast cancer, as the researchers report in the scientific journal “Nature”.
Combining an atomically thin graphene and a boron nitride layer at a slightly rotated angle changes their electrical properties. Physicists at the University of Basel have now shown for the first time the combination with a third layer can result in new material properties also in a three-layer sandwich of carbon and boron nitride. This significantly increases the number of potential synthetic materials, report the researchers in the scientific journal Nano Letters.
The international doctoral program “QUSTEC” will be established at the European Campus.
