First on top of the world and then in the depths of despair – this is what the extreme mood changes for people with bipolar disorder are like. Under the direction of scientists from Bonn, Mannheim and Basel, an international collaboration of researchers discovered two new gene regions that are connected to the prevalent disease. In addition, they were able to confirm three additional suspect genes. In this unparalleled worldwide study, the scientists are utilizing unprecedented numbers of patients.
Neurobiologist Silvia Arber, Professor at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel and the Friedrich Miescher Institute, will be awarded the Otto Naegeli Prize 2014 by the Otto Naegeli Foundation. The Otto Naegli Prize for Medical Research is one of the most highly esteemed research awards given in Switzerland. The award ceremony will be taking place Mai 28 at the University of Basel.
This year, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) awards 40 SNSF professorships to young researchers who intend to pursue an academic career. Five of them have chosen the University of Basel as host institution and will establish their own research team at the departments of Biomedicine, Biozentrum, Physics, Linguistics and Literature, as well as at the University Hospital of Basel and the Kantonsspital Aarau.
In collaboration with colleagues from Berlin and Madrid, researchers at the Department of Physics at the University of Basel have pulled up isolated molecular chains from a gold surface, using the tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM). The observed signal provides insight into the detachment force and binding energy of molecules.
After the adoption of the initiative on mass immigration, the future of the Erasmus Program in Switzerland is uncertain. The negotiations on Swiss participation in the new program Erasmus+ have been suspended. The European Commission has informed Switzerland that it has lost its status as program country for calls for project proposals issued in 2014. With Switzerland's new third-country status, Swiss institutions may continue to takes part as project partners.
Switzerland will be handled as a third country in calls for project proposals. What does this mean for Basel researchers? Edwin Constable, Vice Rector for Research at the University of Basel, has some answers.
Many psychiatric disorders are accompanied by memory deficits. Basel scientists have now identified a network of genes that controls fundamental properties of neurons and is important for human brain activity, memory and the development of schizophrenia.
Physicists at the University of Basel have observed a spontaneous magnetic order of electron and nuclear spins in a quantum wire at temperatures of 0.1 kelvin. In the past, this was possible only at much lower temperatures, typically in the microkelvin range. The coupling of nuclei and electrons creates a new state of matter whereby a nuclear spin order arises at a much higher temperature. The results are consistent with a theoretical model developed in Basel a few years ago.
