Flora Colledge is a postdoc and professional triathlete. At the Department of Sport, Exercise and Health at the University of Basel, the sports scientist is heading a study on “movement addiction.” The aim is to fundamentally investigate and classify the phenomenon, as sports addiction has not yet been recognized as either a disease or a disorder. This is also of relevance to the development of support measures for those affected.
Santhera Pharmaceuticals and the University of Basel’s Biozentrum announce their collaboration to advance gene therapy research for the treatment of congenital muscular dystrophy. Innosuisse – the Swiss Innovation Promotion Agency – and Santhera will jointly invest 1.2 million Swiss Francs into this research program.
The relay station of the brain, the substantia nigra consists of different types of nerve cells and is responsible for controlling the execution of diverse movements. Researchers at the University of Basel’s Biozentrum have now characterized two of these cell populations more precisely and has been able to assign an exact function to each of them.
The deep sea is home to fish species that can detect various wavelengths of light in near-total darkness. Unlike other vertebrates, they have several genes for the light-sensitive photopigment rhodopsin. The findings were published in the journal Science by evolutionary biologists from the University of Basel.
The use of potassium bromide in the production of graphene on a copper surface can lead to better results. When potassium bromide molecules arrange themselves between graphene and copper, it results in electronic decoupling, as reported by physicists from the universities of Basel, Modena and Munich in the journal ACS Nano.
Individualized nutrition not only causes hospital patients to consume more protein and calories but also improves clinical treatment outcomes.
For the first time, physicists at the University of Basel have succeeded in measuring the magnetic properties of atomically thin van der Waals materials on the nanoscale. They used diamond quantum sensors to determine the strength of the magnetization of individual atomic layers of the material chromium triiodide. In addition, they found a long-sought explanation for the unusual magnetic properties of the material.
Animal-assisted therapy can foster social competence in patients with brain injuries and increase their emotional involvement during therapy. These were the findings of a clinical trial conducted by psychologists from the University of Basel and published in the journal Scientific Reports.
More than 30 ancient graves have been uncovered by archaeologists and students from the University of Basel as part of an educational excavation in southern Italy. The graves date from a time when the first Greeks and Orientals arrived in the region about 3,000 years ago, and document the cultural exchange with the local population. The results and methods of the research project will now be presented in an exhibition at the University Library of Basel, which opens on April 12, 2019.
