S-acylation enhances COVID-19 infection

Scientists from the University of Geneva are demonstrating how cold could alleviate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis by depriving the immune system of its energy.

EPFL and Microsoft Research scientists demonstrated ultrafast optical circuit switching using a chip-based soliton comb laser and a completely passive diffraction grating device. This particular architecture could enable an energy-efficient optical datacenter to meet enormous data bandwidth requirements in future.

Interleukin-12 - a messenger molecule of immune cells - was long considered to trigger the development of psoriasis. Now, researchers at the University of Zurich have shown that interleukin-12 does not actually cause the skin disease but protects against it. This also explains why common psoriasis drugs that block the messenger show insufficient treatment efficacy.

A common gene variant for the protein Aquaporin-1 lowers the amount of water channels in the cell membranes. This reduces water transport and leads to a higher risk of death in patients with kidney failure treated with peritoneal dialysis. In such cases, specific osmotic solutions should be used, as an international research team led by the University of Zurich has shown.