news 2024

Antibody that Neutralizes Inhibitory Factors Involved in Nerve Regeneration Leads to Enhanced Motor Function Antibodies can improve the rehabilitation of people with acute spinal cord injury. Researchers at 13 clinics in Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Spain have investigated this with promising results.

Scientists at EPFL have developed "lymphomoids," a pioneering cancer model that preserves the structure and multicellular composition of lymphoma tumors in the lab. Lymphomoids offer an innovative way to test the efficacy of lymphoma treatments and better predict individual responses. Cancer is notoriously complex, with each tumor responding to different therapies.

These small particles are reminiscent of paper flowers or desert roses. Physicians can use them to guide medicines to a precise destination within the body. Better yet, the particles can easily be tracked using ultrasound as they scatter sound waves. How can medicines be directed to the precise location within the body where they need to act? Scientists have been researching this question for a long time.

A new generation of wearable sensors will fundamentally change medicine. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now published an overview showing what is possible with such sensors and what questions their developers should consider to ensure their successful future use. Using a smartwatch to measure pulse, and a smartphone app to monitor blood pressure: wearable sensors already track some of the body's vital functions fairly reliably, and some of these devices can already be used in clinical diagnostics.

Researchers have uncovered a serious side effect of using the CRISPR-Cas gene scissors. A molecule designed to make the process more efficient destroys parts of the genome. Genome editing with various CRISPR-Cas molecule complexes has progressed rapidly in recent years. Hundreds of labs around the world are now working to put these tools to clinical use and are continuously advancing them.

Fampridine is currently used to improve walking ability in multiple sclerosis. A new study shows that it could also help individuals with reduced working memory, as seen in mental health conditions like schizophrenia or depression. Remembering a code for long enough to type it in; holding a conversation and reacting appropriately to what is being said: in everyday situations like these, we use our working memory.

Glioblastoma is the most common kind of malignant brain tumor in adults. So far, no treatment has been able to make this aggressive tumor permanently disappear. The tumor cells are too varied, and the microenvironment is too tumor-friendly. Researchers at the University of Basel and University Hospital Basel have now developed an immunotherapy that not only attacks the tumor-it also turns its microenvironment against it.

As a journalist, do you have general questions about PSI? Are you looking for an expert on your topic?  Get in touch with our Getting to the roots of a global health problem Imad El Haddad analyses the chemical composition and health impacts of particulate matter at the Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences of the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI.

Drug tolerant bacteria pose a major challenge, because they can survive antibiotic therapies and cause recurrent infections. Researchers at the University of Basel have discovered how a dangerous human pathogen causing pneumonia uses a kind of molecular "sleeping pill" to enter a dormant state and by that persist antibiotic treatment.

In a pilot study, researchers at the University of Zurich have used artificial intelligence to detect antibiotic resistance in bacteria for the first time. This is an important first step toward integrating GPT-4 into clinical diagnostics. Researchers at the University of Zurich (UZH) have used artificial intelligence (AI) to help identify antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Researchers at the University of Bern and Bern University Hospital have developed a test to simplify the diagnosis of allergies. Its effectiveness has now been confirmed in clinical samples from children and adolescents suffering from a peanut allergy. The results could fundamentally improve the clinical diagnosis of allergies in future.

Researchers have discovered molecules capable of limiting the side effects of opioids by blocking the receptor responsible for their action. Opioid drugs are highly effective at relieving pain but come with severe drawbacks. Their side effects range from dizziness to potentially fatal respiratory depression.

Widespread skin diseases such as psoriasis or neurodermatitis are difficult to treat. Together with an industrial partner, researchers have found an innovative solution: Nanoceramic "stars" create tiny skin lesions and allow therapeutic molecules to reach their site of action. When material scientists look into the stars, they may be able to recognize the future - namely when it comes to stars made of nanoceramics.

A research team led by Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, and the University of Bern has shown that a high percentage of kidney stones are excreted without symptoms. This finding should be incorporated into the future treatment of patients with recurrent kidney stones. Kidney stones are caused by the deposition of minerals and salts in the kidneys and can lead to severe pain when passing through the urinary tract.

Results from a preclinical study in mice, led by EPFL, and a collaborative clinical study in patients show that the type 2 immune response - associated with parasitic infection and thought to play a negative role in cancer immunity - is positively correlated with long-term cancer remission. In 2012, 7-year-old Emily Whitehead became the first pediatric patient to receive pioneering chimeric antigen receptor (CAR-T) therapy to fight the recurrence of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

Antonio Landi, PhD assistant at the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences and winner of USI Equal Opportunities Award 2024 for scientific contributions on topics of equality and diversity , presented his research to us, providing a comprehensive examination of gender medicine. Antonio Landi, could you please explain the research you conducted and the results it led to? "The study, published in JAMA Cardiology, aimed to analyse the impact of gender on optimal drug therapy in patients with coronary atherosclerotic disease undergoing angioplasty with coronary stent placement.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have used a drug screening platform they developed to show that an antidepressant, currently on the market, kills tumour cells in the dreaded glioblastoma - at least in the cell-culture dish. Glioblastoma is a particularly aggressive brain tumour that at present is incurable.

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 recently discovered that a factor involved in blood coagulation, Factor X, directly promotes resistance to hormonal therapies in preclinical models and is associated with poor survival in  metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients.

Pharmaceutical researchers often find new pharmaceutically active substances only by sifting through large collections of chemical compounds. Chemists at ETH Zurich have now made critical progress on a specific process for generating and searching these collections. Nowadays, there's lots of buzz about spectacular new medical treatments such as personalised cancer therapy with modified immune cells or antibodies.

The Institute of oncology research (IOR), affiliated to USI, is pleased to announce the publication of a study describing a new compound designed at IOR, targeting the Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (WASp) with anti-cancer activity in various hematological cancers. The research, led by Dr Eugenio Gaudio (former IOR senior investigator) and Prof. Francesco Bertoni (IOR group leader and deputy director, USI adjunct professor), involved prominent institutions, including the Institute for research in biomedicine (IRB) and various European and North-American institutions.