Stargardt disease is a hereditary eye disease that leads to visual defects and the loss of sight. A study has now shown that autofluorescence imaging might offer a way to assess whether novel treatments are effective at slowing down vision loss.
Research groups at the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel have uncovered how cancer cells in brain tumors promote their own growth. In order to achieve this, the cancer cells inhibit growth receptor degradation in the brain’s cells and intensify receptor signal transmission.
Mark Pieth, Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Basel and President of the Board of the Basel Institute on Governance, has been appointed to the University of the Western Cape in South Africa as an Extraordinary Professor.
The neurotransmitter brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) acts in the muscle, so that during strength training endurance muscle fiber number is decreased. Researchers at the University of Basel’s Biozentrum have more closely investigated this factor. Their results also provide new insights into age-related muscle atrophy.
After nerve injury, the protein complex mTORC1 takes over an important function in skeletal muscle to maintain the neuromuscular junction, the synapse between the nerve and muscle fiber. Researchers at the University of Basel’s Biozentrum have now shown that the activation of mTORC1 must be tightly balanced for a proper response of the muscle to nerve injury.
On 28 August 2019, the University of Basel’s Biozentrum hosts a scientific symposium to honor its Nobel Prize laureate, Prof. em. Dr. Werner Arber, on the occasion of his 90th Birthday. In addition to a review of the lifetime achievements of the microbiologist and discoverer of bacterial restriction enzymes, two scientific lectures will highlight the newest developments in the field of genome editing.
Adjusting the thermal conductivity of materials is one of the challenges nanoscience is currently facing. Together with colleagues from the Netherlands and Spain, researchers from the University of Basel have shown that the atomic vibrations that determine heat generation in nanowires can be controlled through the arrangement of atoms alone. The scientists will publish the results shortly in the journal Nano Letters.
Acute myeloid leukemia stem cells elude the body’s immune cells by deactivating a danger detector. The underlying mechanisms and the potential new therapeutic approaches that this gives rise to have been detailed in the journal Nature by researchers from the University of Basel and University Hospital Basel in collaboration with colleagues in Germany.
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg has ruled that Nigeria must release a Swiss tanker it has detained off its coast for more than 17 months. Switzerland appointed Anna Petrig, Professor of International Law at the University of Basel, as judge ad hoc for this case. This is the first time in the history of the UN tribunal that a woman has held this position.
