wire - news in brief

Abionic, an EPFL spin-off, has just brought its first round of financing to a close and was selected yesterday by Red Herring as one of Europe's 100 most innovative companies.

Engineering the Nervous System to Improve Sensation, Cognition, and Mobility Research in biotechnology, microelectronics, and neural implants as well as advances in our understanding of the brain are changing our approaches to treating disability.

Philippe Wieser will conduct a research project that studies the value chain performances Supported by the general management of Nestlé, the project entitled " A convergent approach on sustainable va

EPFL scientists have teased out the role that a protein known as SMRT plays in regulating the production of fat cells. And in the process, they made another, unexpected discovery; this protein also plays a critical role in the division of cells that ultimately store fat. How does the body produce fat cells? EPFL scientists have uncovered the role of SMRT, a protein involved in regulating this phenomenon.

Anu Wadhwa has been awarded a grant by the SNF to study uncertainty in the venture capital investements practices in the cleantech sector.

EPFL chemists have shown how the three-dimensional shape of an antibiotic changes when it is in an aqueous environment. This could lead to a better understanding of how drugs interact with biological molecules. Like a key inserted into a lock, the molecules in drugs bind with and act upon biomolecules.

The paper Plenoptic Spherical Sampling has been accepted for presentation at 19th International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) The paper presents a novel sampling scheme that permits an efficient representation of the 4D light field in free space.

Emanuele Strano, a doctoral candidate at LASIG, authored a study published in Nature's Scientific Reports to examine how a group of Italian villages evolved into suburbs outside Milan today. Such a study may eventually help urban planners optimize future developments. The magazine " Scientific American " devoted a popularization article to this study.

Ferroelectric Nanowires : an Investigation in Synthesis, Characterization, Functionality, and Modeling of Finite Size Effects.

RedOx Stability of Anode Supported Solid Oxide Fuel Cells. Thèse EPFL, no 4893 (2011). Dir. Jan Van herle, Aïcha Hessler-Wyser.

A Well-Defined Ni Pincer Catalyst for Cross Coupling of Non-Activated Alkyl Halides and Direct C-H Alkylation.

Virulence Regulator EspR of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Is a Nucleoid-Associated Protein. The principal virulence determinant of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the ESX-1 protein secretion system, is positively controlled at the transcriptional level by EspR. Using EspR-specific antibodies in ChIP-Seq experiments (chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by ultra-high throughput DNA sequencing) the group of Stewart Cole (Global Health Institute) show that EspR binds to at least 165 loci on the Mtb genome.

Insights into Intrastrand Cross-Link Lesions of DNA from QM/MM Molecular Dynamics Simulations. DNA damages induced by oxidative intrastrand cross-links have been the subject of intense research during the past decade.

Cell-type-specific β2 adrenergic receptor clusters identified using photo-activated localization microscopy are not lipid raft related, but depend on actin cytoskeleton integrity.

A series of successes for EPFL start-ups. By the end of a successful round of financing, two new businesses founded in the Science Park of the School, Kandou and Aleva, had raised, respectively, 10 and 4 million francs.

Evidence for a Peierls phase-transition in a three-dimensional multiple charge-density waves solid. Recent research on low dimensional solids lead to the discovery of the frist two-dimensional material, graphene. While a mono-dimensional chain of atoms was never produced, it can be found as a substructure in several materials.

Researchers at the EPFL have discovered rules that relate the genes that a neuron switches on and off, to the shape of that neuron, its electrical properties and its location in the brain. The discovery, using state-of-the-art informatics tools, increases the likelihood that it will be possible to predict much of the fundamental structure and function of the brain without having to measure every aspect of it.

Nanopore Detection of Single Molecule RNAP-DNA Transcription Complex. In the past decade, a number of single-molecule methods have been developed with the aim of investigating single protein and nucleic acid interactions.

When goods are produced, water is used in the process. Even though this water is "virtual," tracking its import and export gives a crucial indication of the evolution of world water resources. An international team of hydrologists has studied the global trade of virtual water, and is publishing an article this week in the journal PNAS outlining a number of striking conclusions.

More precision and less cost for endoscopic surgeries: the tool developed by DistalMotion, a spin-off of the EPFL, will allow surgeons to reproduce their exact movements.

The first prototype of a new, ultra-compact motor that will allow small satellites to journey beyond Earth's orbit is just making its way out of the EPFL laboratories where it was built.

To alter natural waterways is to take a serious risk of endangering species living on the entire length of a river. In a joint project, scientists from EPFL, EAWAG and Princeton University have modeled the flow of organisms living along river networks. Their research will be published this week in the journal PNAS.

IDIAP announced the start this month of the Biometrics Evaluation and Testing (BEAT) project funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) with the EPFL as a full partner, through the Security and Cryptography Laboratory (LASEC) of Vaudenay.

Journal of Biogeography acceptance - The mid-Holocene vegetation of the Mediterranean region and southern Europe, and comparison with the present day. Authors: Pamela M. Collins, Basil A. S. Davis and Jed O. Kaplan Collins , Davis , and Kaplan map differences in Mediterranean and southern European vegetation beween 6,000 years ago and the present.

In the context of a landscape genetics research project dedicated to the study of adaptation of an Alpine plant species to its environment, a team of LASIG's scientists were last Friday on the top of les Rochers-de-Naye.

A novel concept for optical spectroscopy. The group of Theo Lasser (Laboratoire d'optique biomédicale LOB) present a novel concept for optical spectroscopy called nonlinear correlation spectroscopy (NLCS). NLCS analyses coherent field fluctuations of the second and third harmonic light generated by diffusing nanoparticles.

Bicyclic Peptide Inhibitor Reveals Large Interface with a Protease Target.

A new method to automatically generate computer software components that are guaranteed to behave correctly. Researchers at EPFL discovered a new method to automatically generate computer software components that are guaranteed to behave correctly. Among the benefits of this line of research is making software development easier and making our computing infrastructure less vulnerable to crashes and hangs.

A full day workshop dedicated to the challenges ahead for solar shading took place at the R+T 2012 leading world trade fair for solar protection systems, held annually in Stuttgart, Germany.

Best Paper Award at the 20th ACM/SIGDA International Symposium on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays for the Processor Architecture Laboratory team.

Researchers who have recently established their laboratory at the EPFL School of Life Sciences have identified a small RNA molecule that limits the pro-tumoral functions of macrophages.

Professor A. Berne, thesis director, and the whole LTE team, congratulate J. Jaffrain for his thesis on "Experimental quantification of the variability of the raindrop size distribution at small scales".

Chronic pain has a significant impact on the physical, social and emotional functioning of those who suffer from it.

Researchers at the EPFL have identified an important mechanism that could lead to the design of more effective cancer vaccines. Their discovery of a new-found role of the lymphatic system in tumour growth shows how tumours evade detection. Tumour cells present antigens or protein markers on their surfaces which make them identifiable to the host immune system.

Phage Pierces the Host Cell Membrane with the Iron-Loaded Spike. Bacteriophages with contractile tails and the bacterial type VI secretion system have been proposed to use a special protein to create an opening in the host cell membrane during infection.

An unexpected flaw has been detected of a system that is widely used for protection of online transactions.

The book "Remote Sensing Image Processing", edited by Gustavo Camps-Valls (Universitat de València), Devis Tuia ( LASIG laboratory), Luis Gómez-Chova, Sandra Jiménez and Jesús Malo, is now available at Morgan and Claypool publishers. The book deals with Earth observation, which is the field of science concerned with the problem of monitoring and modeling the processes on the Earth surface and their interaction with the atmosphere.

The proliferation of debris orbiting the Earth - primarily jettisoned rocket and satellite components - is an increasingly pressing problem for spacecraft, and it can generate huge costs.

Palmitoylated calnexin is a key component of the ribosome-translocon complex. A third of the human genome encodes N-glycosylated proteins.