wire - news in brief

Researchers from Bern, Geneva, Berlin and Riems are developing two vaccine candidates against SARS-CoV-2.

The peregrine falcon has an eventful history in Switzerland: Almost extinct due to pesticides, it made a comeback after they were banned.

The Swiss 3RCC has awarded Bernhard Voelkl from the Vetsuisse Faculty of the University of Bern the 2021 3Rs Award in recognition of his work supporting researchers to better design animal studies to improve research quality and reduce animal use.

Human biology is the research focus of a number of EPFL labs, where scientists conduct clinical trials with volunteers to design therapeutic interventions and to learn more about how the body functions.

The collaboration will accelerate the testing of GliaPharm's lead molecules in preclinical models of Alzheimer's disease and further the development of neuroimaging biomarkers Geneva, Switzerland - G

Symbiotic relationships are not as rare as we sometimes think. Symbiosis is widespread in nature, for example in aphids.

It takes two to three weeks for the young of songbirds such as House Wrens and Barn Swallows to grow big and strong enough to leave the nest.

Hermaphroditic species face a fundamental question: how much energy should they expend on their male and female sides? Flatworms have found various answers to this question over the course of evolution - and the solutions are directly correlated with their mating behavior. Many plants and animals have both male and female reproductive organs.

Antibiotic resistance is an emerging threat to public health, and now a leading cause of death worldwide , killing close to five million people in 2019.

A system developed by Grégoire Courtine and Jocelyne Bloch now enables patients with a complete spinal cord injury to stand, walk and even perform recreational activities like swimming, cycling and canoeing. The images made headlines around the world in late 2018. David Mzee, who had been left paralyzed by a partial spinal cord injury suffered in a sports accident, got up from his wheelchair and began to walk with the help of a walker.

To discover the molecular mechanisms of health and disease, some FMI researchers use animals such as mice and fish.

Professor Verdon Taylor from the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel studies the development of the brain from stem cells, including using animal-free methods. Here, he explains which research questions can be answered using this approach - and why animal experiments are still needed.

At the University of Basel, a large team of experts looks after the welfare of animals used in experiments. The aim is to minimize the stress placed on the animals. This is achieved by means of species-appropriate animal husbandry, careful planning of experiments and close monitoring of each animal.

Professor Alfred Zippelius, from the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel, has been conducting experiments with mice for several years.

For amplifying sensory stimuli quickly and accurately, neuronal circuits require specific wiring. Some 70 years ago, the compelling idea that "neurons that fire together wire together" emerged. Yet, in computational models, neurons that wire together tend to succumb to an explosion of activity and instability not observed in neurobiology.

In order to fight the pandemic in the long term, it is crucial to understand why one variant prevails over another. An international study conducted by the Institute of Virology and Immunology and the University of Bern, in collaboration with the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut in Germany, has provided important answers by comparing the spread and transmission of different emerging variants in parallel.

A new synthesis conducted by a group of international scientists including Madhav P. Thakur from the University of Bern reveals mismatches between aboveand belowground plant phenology due to climate change.

A multidisciplinary international research team led by Prof. Daniel Candinas and Prof. Deborah Stroka at Inselspital and the University of Bern has succeeded in providing important evidence: The researchers have been able to identify the initial cells and primary trigger leading to the formation of adhesions in the abdomen after operations contaminated by intestinal bacteria.

When it comes to climate-friendly behaviour, there is often a gap between what we want and what we actually do.

Bernese researchers have developed a theory that shows how the brain can efficiently learn extremely fast sequences of sensory stimuli.

Projects taking part in the National Research Programme "Covid-19" (NRP 78) of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) are pursuing highly promising approaches in a drive to develop new vaccines.

How does a machine recognise plankton? In much the same way as people recognise the faces of other people.

Prof. Christoph Vorburger is a biologist and heads the Aquatic Ecology department at the aquatic research institute Eawag.

A European research team led by the UNIGE and the HUG propose a new framework for analysing Alzheimer's disease, and call for early and differentiated treatment for at-risk people.

Stanisa Raspopovic connects the digital world of sensors and electrical circuits with the nervous system and its cellular circuits.

Elisa Calamita's doctoral thesis in the Eawag Surface Waters Department and at ETH Zurich was part of the Horizon 2020 project DAFNE.

Lake Constance on the border between Germany, Austria and Switzerland is one of the largest lakes on the edge of the Alps and is an essential drinking water reservoir and ecosystem, important for tourism, recreation, fishing, nature conservation and thermal utilisation.

Silvia Arber - group leader at the FMI and at the Biozentrum, University of Basel - and a team of international experts receive 8 million Swiss Francs from the Aligning Science Across Parkinson's (ASAP) initiative to investigate Parkinson's.

Green tea is seen as healthy and promotes a longer life supposedly due to its high level of antioxidants.

The Artificial Swissness exhibit - a larger than life-sized "design brain" developed by EPFL's Media x Design Lab (LDM) - is currently on display at the Seoul Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism, which runs until 31 October 2021.

Human cells are like tiny, multi-purpose factories. In his research, biologist Gabriele Alessandro Fontana investigates how cells repair damaged DNA.

An EPFL scientist has pinpointed the signs of brain activity that make up our brain fingerprint, which - like our regular fingerprint - is unique. "I think about it every day and dream about it at night. It's been my whole life for five years now," says Enrico Amico, a scientist and SNSF Ambizione Fellow at EPFL's Medical Image Processing Laboratory and the EPFL Center for Neuroprosthetics.

Researchers led by the Nobel Laureate Charles Rice of The Rockefeller University and Volker Thiel of the University of Bern and Institute of Virology and Immunology have developed a non-contagious model of SARS-CoV-2 that makes it easier, faster and safer to study the virus and new variants. In addition, the realistic model can be used to better test drugs.