Prof. Richard Neher, who was just recently appointed to the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, is the joint winner of the Open Science Prize, together with Prof. Trevor Bedford of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. The two scientists have been awarded the prize for their open access online tool “nextstrain.org”, which allows the real-time tracking of the evolution and spread of dangerous pathogens, such as Ebola or Zika.
For the first time, theoretical physicists from the University of Basel have calculated the signal of specific gravitational wave sources that emerged fractions of a second after the Big Bang. The source of the signal is a long-lost cosmological phenomenon called “oscillon”.
On February 8th, 2017, the American National Foundation for Cancer Research announced that Michael N. Hall, Professor of Biochemistry at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, has been selected as the winner of the 2017 Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research. The award recognizes his groundbreaking discovery of the protein kinase TOR – target of rapamycin – and its role in cell growth control and carcinogenesis.
Ansgar Kahmen, plant scientist at the University of Basel, employs botanical archives to assess how plants have responded physiologically to environmental changes over the past 150 years. The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded him a Consolidator Grant worth CHF 2.1 million for his research.
In the future, the area covered by temperate drylands will shrink in favor of subtropical drylands. Rising temperatures are increasingly drying out deeper layers of soil in the remaining temperate drylands – with significant repercussions for plant life.
The decisions we make are influenced by other possibilities that we did not choose. At the same time, the options we missed out on determine our satisfaction with the outcomes of situations we were unable to control. Psychologists from the University of Basel conducted two experiments: first, they studied the decision-making behavior of students and, second, they measured brain activity and satisfaction when a set of possibilities is supplemented with another alternative. The Journal of Neuroscience has published the results.
Protein aggregates in neurons are characteristic for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases. These so-called amyloids arise from misfolded proteins and lead to cell death. Researchers at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel has demonstrated by the example of the hormone vasopressin that such amyloids in the cell are, however, not always harmful but can also play a quite useful role.
Researchers from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) and the University of Basel have identified two types of neurons in the amygdala, each of which generates a distinct fear response – freezing or flight. In addition, these two cell types interact, thus creating a balance, which shifts in one direction or the other, depending on the particular situation. The researchers’ findings were published in Nature.
Independent medical evaluations are often used to adjudicate disability claims. But different doctors assessing the same patient often disagree on whether the patient is disabled or not. This problem can be mitigated by applying standardized procedures, says an international study led by researchers at the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel in Switzerland.