How can we age more healthily? And how can supply chains for coffee, cocoa and palm oil become more sustainable? Researchers at the University of Basel are addressing these and other questions with the support of an “SNSF Starting Grant” from the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Professor Primo Schär has been Vice President for Research at the University of Basel since August. After 100 days in the role, the biomedical specialist explains what good research means to him and what he aim to focus on during his term.
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.
A research team from the University of Basel has succeeded in synthesizing simple, environmentally sensitive cells complete with artificial organelles. For the first time, the researchers have also been able to emulate natural cell-cell communication using these protocells – based on the model of photoreceptors in the eye. This opens up new possibilities for basic research and applications in medicine.
Women earn more if they mostly went to school with other girls as children, report researchers at the University of Basel and Durham University. Their findings are based on data from 750,000 schoolchildren.
The right to vote is an important part of a democracy. But not everyone makes use of it. A researcher at the University of Basel has investigated the possible causes of this.
Over time, the English language has acquired quite a few Yiddish words, such as bagel. Some are now no longer even recognizable as such. Linguist Julia Landmann from the University of Basel has collected these terms and classified them according to their social history.
Researchers from Switzerland and Kenya have investigated how climate change, urbanization and malaria control measures affect the risk of malaria in Kenya. The results show that despite a general decline, the risk of malaria has increased significantly in some regions.
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. The findings suggest that this survival strategy may play an important role during chronic infections.
