news 2019

Can analytical methods from materials science help us better understand human bones' A research team at Empa in Thun is pursuing precisely this approach. Osteoporosis is a wide­spread disease. Every third woman and every fifth man are affected by bone loss with ad­vanc­ing age. A frequent consequence of this is a fracture of the femoral neck - a painful injury that massively impairs the quality of life of those affected.

The human heart still poses great challenges to modern medicine. More than ten million people in Europe suffer from heart failure, and quite a few of them need a donor organ. Artificial heart pumps are used to bridge the waiting time, but complications are not uncommon. The "Zurich Heart" project, in which Empa is a partner, is developing solutions.

A herniated disc is painful - and the most frequent cause of spinal surgery. But is the selected treatment always the right one? New research results show that the clinical criteria - the comparison of two static images - are often not sufficient to make the best decision for the patient. Sudden back pain is often caused by a herniated disc.

Poorly healing wounds and severe scarring are more than just a cosmetic problem; they can significantly impair a person's mobility and health. Empa researchers have now developed a foam that is supposed to prevent excessive scarring and help wounds to heal quickly. An essential ingredient: the yellow ginger tumeric.

Physiological parameters in our blood can be determined without painful punctures. Empa researchers are currently working with a Canadian team to develop flexible, biocompatible nanocellulose sensors that can be attached to the skin. The 3D-printed analytic chips made of renewable raw materials will even be biodegradable in future.

On behalf of social security institutions, psychiatrists assess to what extent people with mental health problems are still able to work. However, the work capability assessments tend to be far too dissimilar. A new training course has helped to reduce the differences. This confirms a study conducted by researchers in Basel.

By studying the effects of gold nanoparticles on the immune cells related to antibody production,  researchers at UNIGE, at Swansea University and at the NCCR "Bio-inspired Materials" are paving the way for more effective vaccines and therapies. Over the past twenty years, the use of nanoparticles in medicine has steadily increased.

Researchers at EPFL have developed a method to stimulate human stem cells to organize themselves into ordered layers of different cell types. Published , the method is based on microfluidics and can help better understand how tissues are formed in the embryo, setting the stage for fabricating functional tissues and organs for drug testing and transplantation.

Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease with a huge impact on global health. More than 200 million people are infected, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers from Swiss TPH, the Natural History Museum London and partner institutions in Zanzibar have published a study on interventions for schistosomiasis elimination in Zanzibar, which found that while schistosomiasis was eliminated as a public health problem in over 90% of the study regions, transmission is not yet interrupted and reinfection occurs.

Researchers at EPFL have developed a hydrogel that offers unrivaled protection against transplanted cell rejection. The School's Technology Transfer Office has licensed the new product to Cell-Caps, a Geneva-based startup specialized in cell encapsulation for treating diabetes. Transplanted tissue often comes under attack from the body's immune system and struggles to survive in the hostile host environment.

UNIGE researchers have discovered a potential link between viral infections in the brain in childhood and the risk to develop auto-immune disease in adulthood. Although the exact causes of multiple sclerosis still remain unknown, it is assumed that the disease is triggered by a combination of genetic and environmental risk factors.

An international team of researchers involving members of the University of Basel's Biozentrum challenges the conventional understanding of the cause of Parkinson's disease. The researchers have shown that the inclusions in the brain's neurons, characteristic of Parkinson's disease, are comprised of a membranous medley rather than protein fibrils.

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI in Villigen, Switzerland, have for the first time elucidated the structure of important enzymes in human cells that alter essential building blocks of the cellular cytoskeleton. This reveals the missing part of a cycle that regulates the build-up or breakdown of supporting elements of the cell.

Researchers from the Universities of Geneva and Franche-Comté have developed an innovative device that investigates a patient's platelet capacity in near real-life conditions so that bleeding can be stopped (haemostasis). Various diseases can cause haemorrhages or thromboses, sometimes fatal, resulting in particular from complications during surgery.

Strongyloides stercoralis is a soil-transmitted threadworm that is endemic in many tropical and subtropical countries. In a nation-wide study in Cambodia, Swiss TPH scientists and their partners found that nearly a third of the population is infected with S. stercoralis. The results were published today in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

For the first time, Bernese researchers have been able to solve the structure of a transport protein and thus to describe the functional mechanism that plays a significant role in the survival of cancer cells. This is an important step towards developing effective inhibitors and fight tumor growth. Certain cancer cells depend on exporting the metabolite lactate, which accumulates during the generation on energy.

Currently, around 910,000 Rohingya refugees live in Cox's Bazar District in Bangladesh after having fled violence faced in Myanmar, resulting in one of the most rapid exoduses in modern history. In a project funded by UNICEF and coordinated by Swiss TPH, a study was conducted to identify and understand WASH practices of the populations living in the camp.

A fMRI study shows the effect of social support on the social exclusion experience. Social belonging is a fundamental need for the life of human beings.

Researchers at UNIGE have discovered that the development of the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for memory and emotions, is severely impacted in adolescence following the onset of the first psychotic symptoms. Schizophrenia causes hallucinations and memory or cognition problems inter alia.

Urolithin A, a metabolite of biomolecules found in pomegranates and other fruits, could help slow certain aging processes. EPFL spin-off Amazentis, in conjunction with EPFL and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, has published a paper Metabolism outlining the results of their clinical trial. It is a fact of life that skeletal muscles begin to lose strength and mass once a person reaches the age of 50.