news 2023

Antibiotics are useless against viruses, including the coronavirus. Nevertheless, doctors in Switzerland prescribed antibacterial drugs about twice as often in the first year of the pandemic as before, report researchers from the University of Basel. A risky practice, warns the research team . It was a time of great uncertainty: when the first coronavirus wave rolled across Switzerland in spring 2020, there were neither diagnostic tests nor a vaccine nor effective medication.

A large-scale study by the DYNAMIC project has produced promising results: the use of a new digital clinical decision-making tool has led to a twoto three-fold reduction in the prescription of antibiotics. These results, just published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Medicine, marks an important step towards curbing bacterial antimicrobial resistance.

By analysing the lipid profiles of dozens of people, UNIGE and HUG scientists have highlighted the importance of fat in the detection and treatment of type 2 diabetes. While sugar is the most frequently named culprit in the development of type 2 diabetes, a better understanding of the role of fats is also essential.

Cancer biologists at EPFL, UNIGE, and the German Cancer Research Center (Heidelberg) have developed a novel immunotherapy that does not require knowledge of a tumor's antigenic makeup. The new results may pave the way to first-in-kind clinical applications. Dendritic cells (DCs) work at the forefront of the immune system.

A new AI model developed by chemists at ETH Zurich can not only predict where a pharmaceutically active molecule can be chemically modified, but also how best to do it. This makes it possible to identify new pharmaceutical ingredients more quickly and improve existing ones in a targeted manner. New active pharmaceutical ingredients lay the foundations for innovative and better medical treatments.

Treatment of the chronic inflammatory bowel disease ulcerative colitis often produces unsatisfactory results. Researchers at the University of Bern have now developed a lipid gel that is administered directly to the inflamed part of the intestine, where it remains and releases its active substance evenly.

Cancer cells are chameleons. They completely change their metabolism to grow continuously. University of Basel scientists have discovered that high levels of the amino acid arginine drive metabolic reprogramming to promote tumor growth. This study suggests new avenues to improve liver cancer treatment.

Parithera, an EPFL spin-off, has developed a system that lets doctors detect drug resistance in cancer patients early on, saving precious time and preventing the unnecessary use of treatments with onerous side effects. Drug resistance is a major problem in the treatment of cancer. Some cancer cells demonstrate resistance right at the start of a new therapy, while others develop it over the course of several months or years.

Researchers from Zurich have used machine learning to jointly create an innovative method. This new approach can predict how individual cells react to specific treatments, offering hope for more accurate diagnoses and therapeutics. Cancer is triggered by changes in cells that lead to the proliferation of pathogenic tumour cells.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a suction cup that allows medications to be absorbed through the mucosal lining of the cheeks. This new approach could spare millions of patients the pain and fear associated with injections. Many of today's medications belong to groups of relatively large molecules such as peptides.

Scientists in Western Switzerland have discovered how to improve the anti-tumour power of CAR-T cells, artificial immune ''super-cells'' used against blood cancers. Among available immunotherapies, the use of 'CAR-T' cells is proving extremely effective against certain blood cancers, but only in half of patients.

Inflammation is a normal response of our cells to fight stress, but too much of it can lead to a ''cytokine storm'' that can endanger life. A chain reaction of kinases activates the inflammatory response, like sequential switches. These enzymes have been heavily studied but little is known about their interactions, making it difficult to develop efficient drugs to target them.

A team from the University of Geneva and the HUG analysed the contacts of 50,000 COVID-19 positive cases. Immunity following vaccination provides better protection for those around you. Nearly one in three people exposed to SARS-CoV2 is infected, and as many as two in five with the Omicron variant. In the case of immunity — conferred by vaccination, infection or a combination of the two — this rate drops to one in ten.

A 67-year old patient presenting with oesophageal cancer was treated today at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI with a form of radiation provided by protons, i.e. positively charged particles. This is the first time this type of radiotherapy has been used in Switzerland to treat an oesophageal tumour.

A UNIGE-HUG team demonstrates the value of imaging to detect the presence of tau protein in the brain to predict cognitive decline due to Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease, one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases, leads to progressive loss of memory and autonomy. It is characterised by the accumulation of neurotoxic proteins in the brain, namely amyloid plaques and tau tangles.

It has been known for several years that the diagnosis -multiple sclerosis- conceals a whole range of different illnesses, each requiring customized treatment. Researchers at the University of Basel and the University Hospital of Basel have now described a possible new MS-like disease and explained how to diagnose it.

Researchers at the University of Bern have studied antibody levels against Sars-CoV-2 and their influence on infections with different variants of the virus in employees of the Bern Cantonal Police for over a year. Among other things, the results show that antibody levels offered different levels of protection depending on the variant of the virus and that police officers did not become infected with Covid-19 more frequently than the rest of the population, even though they have very frequent contact with people.

The Molecular Oncology research group, led by Prof. Andrea Alimonti at the Institute of Oncology Research (IOR, affiliated to USI and member of Bios+), has discovered that prostate cancer cells hijacked the translation machinery to recruit immunosuppressive myeloid cells that aid in evading the immune system.

Glioblastomas are among the most aggressive kinds of brain tumors. Even immunotherapy treatments that have proved effective against other cancers seem to be powerless against them. Researchers at the University of Basel and University Hospital Basel have now described how to improve the immune system's chances against this type of tumor.

Antipsychotic drugs are used to treat and manage symptoms of many psychiatric disorders, but their mechanisms of action remain a mystery. FMI researchers found that antipsychotics reduce long-range communication within a specific layer of the brain cortex — a finding that may explain how these medications work.