news 2020

Sprawling carpets of floating plants are the result of too many nutrients. However, they could become part of solution strategies, Eawag researchers show. They are a beautiful sight to behold: carpets of floating plants such as the water hyacinth ( Eichhornia crassipes ) in the Zambezi catchment. However, they are also an indicator of inadequate wastewater management in urban and industrial regions of tropical developing countries.

How do molecules involved in activating our immune system discriminate between our own DNA and foreign pathogens? Researchers from the Thomä group, in collaboration with the EPFL, deciphered the structural and functional basis of a DNA-sensing molecule when it comes in contact with the cell's own DNA, providing crucial insights into the recognition of self vs.

Scientists at EPFL and the Friedrich Miescher Institute have used cryo-electron microscopy to explain how a DNA-sensing biomolecule that is key to our innate immunity response is inactivated when it comes in contact with the cell's own DNA. A biomolecule that gained considerable attention over the past few years is cGAS, a "DNA sensor" that is involved in kickstarting immune responses in the body.

A Basel-led international research team has discovered a connection between the intestinal flora and sites of inflammation in the central nervous system in multiple sclerosis. A specific class of immune cell plays a central role in this newly identified gut-brain axis. The discovery could pave the way for new treatments for MS that target the intestinal flora.

Scientists have generated a huge true random number using DNA synthesis. It is the first time that a number of this magnitude has been created by biochemical means. True random numbers are required in fields as diverse as slot machines and data encryption. These numbers need to be truly random, such that they cannot even be predicted by people with detailed knowledge of the method used to generate them.

Lake Tanganyika in Africa is a true hotspot of organismal diversity. Approximately 240 species of cichlid fishes have evolved in this lake in less than 10 million years. A research team from the University of Basel has investigated this phenomenon of -explosive speciation- and provides new insights into the origins of biological diversity, as they report in the journal -Nature-.

Some, if not all, early sharks that lived 300 to 400 million years ago not only dropped their lower jaws downward but rotated them outwards when opening their mouths. This enabled them to make the best of their largest, sharpest and inward-facing teeth when catching prey, paleontologists at the Universities of Zurich and Chicago have now shown using CT scanning and 3D printing.

Swiss and Italian scientists prove a correlation between gut microbiota and the appearance of amyloid plaques in the brain, typical of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia. Still incurable, it directly affects nearly one million people in Europe, and indirectly millions of family members as well as society as a whole.

At its annual event yesterday, the University Medicine Zurich initiative presented its new flagship project ImmunoPhage: a groundbreaking endeavor that aims to develop bacteriophages for treating urinary tract infections. Bacteriophages are highly specialized viruses that attack and destroy bacteria.

Coral reefs are extremely sensitive to temperature, making them particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. But some corals seem able to adapt. Researchers from EPFL and the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) studied a reef in New Caledonia, combining approaches from environmental science and genomics to characterize their adaptive potential and develop targeted conservation strategies.

Scientists from the University of Geneva and HUG identify the essential role of circadian clocks in the regeneration of insulin-producing cells. Certain parts of our body, such as the skin or liver, can repair themselves after a damage. Known as cell regeneration, this phenomenon describes how cells that are still functional start to proliferate to compensate for the loss.

Bioengineers at EPFL have used organoids - tiny lab-grown organs - to mimic the early development of the heart in the mouse embryo. The work is another step towards future bioartificial organs for research and transplants. There was a time when the idea of growing organs in the lab was the stuff of science fiction.

Research can now target metastases more effectively thanks to a new approach that takes into account the enormous heterogeneity and phenotypes of tumour cells, with a team from the University of Geneva pinpointing a gene that prevents their development. Before an effective treatment can be devised, we have to be able to understand the specific effect of an anti-cancer substance on the cell type, or even the cell, that produces metastases in the enormous cellular heterogeneity of tumours.

Bacteria are considered to be true experts in survival. Their rapid adaptive response to changing environmental conditions is based, among other things, on two competing signaling molecules. As the "Yin and Yang" of metabolic control they decide on the lifestyle of bacteria, as reported by researchers from the University of Basel.

Salamanders have a unique superpower - they can regenerate their spinal cords and regain full functionality. Scientists are working under a cross-disciplinary research project to uncover the mechanisms behind this restorative capability. "Salamanders are unique because they are one of the only tetrapods able to regrow spinal cords with full functionality," says Auke Ijspeert, the head of EPFL's Biorobotics Laboratory.

Plants can be infected by multiple viruses at once. However, the composition of the pathogen community varies, even if individuals belong to the same species and the same population. Ecologists at the University of Zurich have now shown that these differences are primarily due to genetic variation among the hosts.

Researchers supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation have discovered that neural oscillations determine whether the brain chooses eyes or ears to interpret speech. To decipher what a person is telling us, we rely on what we hear as well as on what we see by observing lip movements and facial expressions.

People born without a corpus callosum do not have a bridge between the two cerebral hemispheres. Neuroscientists from the University of Geneva have shown how the brain manages to adapt. One in 4,000 people is born without a corpus callosum, a brain structure consisting of neural fibres that are used to transfer information from one hemisphere to the other.

Researchers from ETHZ have demonstrated how mutations in a gene influence the structure, function and interaction network of a protein complex. Their work lays a key foundation for personalised medicine. In the wake of proclaiming the "Age of the Genome" in the 1990s, scientists mapped the DNA of many organisms, building block by building block.

A research team led by the University of Basel and ETH Zurich has identified a novel SARS-CoV-2 variant that has spread widely across Europe in recent months, according to an un-peer-reviewed preprint released this week In Europe alone, hundreds of different variants of the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 are currently circulating, distinguished by mutations in their genomes.