news 2022

Rectal artesunate, a promising antimalarial drug, has no beneficial effect on the survival of young children with severe malaria when used as an emergency treatment in resource-constrained settings. These are the results of a large-scale study conducted by the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and local partners in three African countries.

A large-scale study by the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) and partners has found that rectal artesunate (RAS) has no beneficial effect on the survival of young children with severe malaria when used as an emergency treatment in resource-constrained settings. The study, which took place under real-world conditions in three African countries, concludes that the use of RAS is unlikely to reduce malaria deaths unless underlying health system weaknesses are addressed.

Researchers have found that a set of proteins have different shapes in the spinal fluid of healthy individuals and Parkinson's patients. These could be used in the future as a new type of biomarker for this disease. Many human diseases can be detected and diagnosed using biomarkers in blood or other body fluids.

Although the complement system forms part of the innate immune system, it can cause damage to the body in some cases. This is because unwanted complement activation contributes to many autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases. Now, researchers have described molecular details of a recently approved class of drugs that can inhibit the complement system.

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the world's biggest infectious disease killers. It is a complicated disease to diagnose and treat, even more so when it affects organs outside of the lung. A clinical trial in Tanzania tested a diagnostic algorithm including point-of-care ultrasound to increase the proportion of correctly managed patients.

A team from the University of Geneva and LMU developed a transport nanoparticle to make an anti-inflammatory drug much more effective and less toxic. How can a drug be delivered exactly where it is needed, while limiting the risk of side effects? The use of nanoparticles to encapsulate a drug to protect it and the body until it reaches its point of action is being increasingly studied.

At least 33 young people have died from polydrug use in Switzerland since 2018. Polydrug use refers to taking two or more psychoactive substances at the same time. The young adults are often unaware of the associated risks and rarely use the available services to minimize the risks, the initial results of a study by the Swiss Research Institute for Public Health and Addiction (IGSF) and the University of Zurich have shown.

A team from the University of Geneva, in collaboration with the UZH, has developed an innovative strategy for studying membrane proteins, the targets of many drugs. Membrane proteins are key targets for many drugs. They are located between the outside and inside of our cells. Some of them, called ''transporters'', move certain substances in and out of the cellular environment.

Chronic diseases often lead to fibrosis, a condition in which organ tissue suffers from excessive scarring. Researchers at the University of Zurich have now developed an immunotherapy that specifically targets the cause - activated fibroblasts - while leaving normal connective tissue cells unharmed.

By comparing the neutralisation capacity induced by the different variants of SARS-CoV-2, a team from the UNIGE and the HUG reveals the exceptional capacity of Omicron to evade our immunity. The current wave of COVID-19 highlights a particularly high risk of reinfection by the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.

Researchers at ETH have shown that cases of opioid poisoning and the prescription of opioids have increased sharply in Switzerland over the past 20 years. Although the situation is not as serious as in North America, the risk should not be underestimated. Since the early 2000-s the US has been in the grip of an opioid crisis that has been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic - in 2021, more than 100,000 people died of an opioid overdose in the country.

Infants undergoing heart surgery are connected to a heart-lung machine and given nitric oxide as an anti-inflammatory. Researchers from the Universities of Zurich and Queensland have now conducted the world's largest study of its kind, showing that using nitric oxide does not improve children's recovery after surgery.

Scientists led by EPFL have successfully engrafted breast cancer cells on mice, allowing them to study in vivo the cross-talk between the estrogen and progesterone receptors that hampers hormone therapies. Their findings suggest that endocrine therapy may need to be personalized, and that abrogating progesterone receptor expression can be a therapeutic option.

Scientists have discovered how an anti-cancer drug could be repurposed to improve memory. It does so by supporting the cell's ability to read the very genes that are important for learning. The epigenetic mechanism of the drug is shown in mice. If you are scared of spiders, you may soon benefit from a drug to enhance your ability to unlearn your arachnophobia, without any undesirable side-effects.

The multidisciplinary Zurich research team Liver4Life has succeeded in doing something during a treatment attempt that had never been achieved in the history of medicine until now: it treated an originally damaged human liver in a machine for three days outside of a body and then implanted the recovered organ into a cancer patient.

Some breast tumors with certain genetic alterations are difficult to treat using existing therapies. Researchers at the University of Basel have now discovered an approach that involves a toxic combination with a second target gene in order to kill the abnormal cells. The first clinical trials could be starting soon.

The Lymphoma Genomics group, directed by Prof. Francesco Bertoni at the Institute of Oncology Research (IOR, affiliated to USI and member of Bios+), identified a new mechanism behind the resistance to the drug idelalisib, used in the treatment of patients with follicular lymphoma and marginal zone lymphoma.

Through wastewater, rivers and lakes are polluted with numerous micropollutants which originate from care products and pharmaceuticals, among other things. The Waters Protection Act therefore aims to expand Swiss wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) with the addition of a further treatment step. In pilot tests, two processes have proven particularly successful in the removal of trace substances: ozonation and treatment with activated carbon.

The list of diseases caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection is growing and now includes the retina. This is what suggest a prospective study by the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) and the University of Geneva. The list of diseases caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection is growing and now includes the retina. This is what suggest a prospective study by the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) and the University of Geneva , in collaboration with the Adolphe de Rothschild Memorial Clinical Research Center for Ophthalmology.

Scientists discuss the possibility of offering personalized treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia by regulating the expression of a gene known for its "anti-tumorous" properties. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is one of the most common blood cancers in adults. The disease originates in B cells - the part of the immune system that produces antibodies - and then evolves slowly, typically affecting older people.