news 2019

Scientists at EPFL have discovered a biological "barrier" that prevents cancer cells from forming new tumors and more importantly, from metastasizing. The study examines pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and breast cancer. Activins are proteins involved in a number of important biological functions, including the regulation of the menstrual cycle, cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, metabolism, homeostasis, immune response, wound repair, and endocrine function.

Scientist at the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland, designed a framework to analyse gene regulation, and offer a model to better understand the role of the non-coding portion of the genome in disease risk. More than genes themselves, how, where and when they are expressed determine our biological traits - our phenotypes.

Traumatized children and children who develop multiple allergies tend to suffer in adulthood from chronic inflammatory diseases and psychiatric disorders. Researchers at the Universities of Zurich and Lausanne have demonstrated this in a study in which they identified five classes of early immune-system programming.

Individualized nutrition not only causes hospital patients to consume more protein and calories, but also improves clinical treatment outcomes. This has been demonstrated in a study by researchers from the University of Basel and Aarau Cantonal Hospital in the journal The Lancet. People who struggle to eat and drink properly following an illness are at risk of consuming too little protein and energy.

Radioactive antibodies that target cancer cells are used for medical diagnostics with PET imaging or for targeted radioimmunotherapy. Researchers from the University of Zurich have created a new method for radiolabelling antibodies using UV light. In less than 15 minutes, the proteins are ready-to-use for cancer imaging or therapy.

EPFL scientists have discovered how a family of proteins that regulates the activity of transposable elements in the genome allows them to make inheritable changes to the growing fetus. The human genome is fascinating. Once predicted to contain about a hundred thousand protein-coding genes, it now seems that the number is closer to twenty thousand, and maybe less.

Researchers at the University of Zurich and from IBM Research have investigated the varying composition of cancer and immune cells in over one hundred breast tumors. They've found that aggressive tumors are often dominated by a single type of tumor cell. If certain immune cells are present as well, an immune therapy could be successful for a specific group of breast cancer patients.

Gait characteristics are sometimes regarded as the sixth vital sign in humans. They serve as a valuable indicator of a person's health, particularly in older adults - so why not measure them? A team of EPFL researchers is taking part in a major European project to design a device that can assess a person's gait more accurately.

A new paper published suggests that recent advances in deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson disease could lead to treatments for conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Gilles de la Tourette syndrome and depression. The authors of the paper argue that bi-directional electrodes, which can both stimulate and record from deep brain structures - known as closed-loop DBS, could have applications beyond Parkinson disease.

With nothing more than a photonic chip and an ordinary camera, EPFL researchers have managed to count biomolecules one by one in a small sample and determine their position. Their tiny device - a marriage of optics and smart image analysis - is even able to detect a graphene sheet only a single atom thick.

A research group 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 results of the study have now been published in "Cell". The research team of the Biozentrum, University of Basel investigated a total of 132 genes associated with schizophrenia.

Researchers from UNIGE and UNIL demonstrate the efficacy of a well-known antibiotic in treating a particularly fatal form of breast cancer, offering hope for targeted therapy. Of the three major subtypes of breast cancer, the «triple negative» is the most lethal: half of all breast cancer deaths are attributed to it, whereas it accounts for only about 15% of incidences of breast cancer.

Scientists from EPFL, UNIL and local startup be.care have developed a system that uses heart rate variability to detect fatigue and identify what kind it is. The system then uses the results to suggest lifestyle changes that can make a difference. An initial test has been carried out on university students under real-world conditions.

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 . Their insights into plant immune systems could be used for new approaches to sustainable crop production.

How does the immune system respond to fungi on our skin? Researchers at the University of Zurich have demonstrated that the same immune cells that protect us against skin fungi also encourage the inflammatory symptoms of atopic dermatitis. An antibody therapy could alleviate this chronic inflammatory skin disease.

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.

Researchers from the Universities of Bern and Oxford have developed a vaccine that blocks the effects of the main cause of pain in osteoarthritis (OA) - nerve growth factor (NGF) - in mice. In a collaborative effort between the Jenner Institute and the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at the University of Oxford, with colleagues in the University of Bern, and the Latvian Biomedical Research & Study Centre, scientists have developed and tested a vaccine that could be used to treat chronic pain caused by osteoarthritis, by blocking the cause of the pain - NGF.

A collaborative project between the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB, affiliated to USI) and several other European and American research institutes provides new hope for the development of an efficient vaccine against human Respiratory Syncytial Virus (hRSV), which is responsible, in particular, for acute lung infections such as bronchiolitis in children.

Scientists from EPFL and the UNIL/Ludwig Cancer Research have found that supplementing diet with nicotinamide riboside, an analogue of vitamin B3, boosts the production of blood cells by improving the function of their stem cells. This can help overcome problems in stem cell-based therapies that treat leukemia and aggressive lymphomas.

Phase III study shows close to 9/10 patients who received Cosentyx 300mg achieved clear or almost clear skin during the first 16 weeks of treatment (87%), with rapid onset of relief seen as early as week 3   Results strengthen unique position of Cosentyx as a rapid and long-lasting complete treatment of psoriatic disease, with over 200,000 patients treated worldwide   Data is being presented at the 2019 American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Annu