Fuel cells generate electrical energy through a chemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen. To obtain clean energy, the splitting of water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen is critical. Researchers at the University of Basel study how sunlight can be used for this purpose.
About thirty percent of all medical drugs such as beta-blockers or antidepressants interact with certain types of cell surface proteins called G protein coupled receptors. Researchers at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, in collaboration with scientists from the Paul Scherrer Institute, have now elucidated in detail how the structure of such a receptor changes when drugs bind and how the structural change transmits a signal to the cellular interior.
Errors in the formation of neurons can lead to neurodevelopmental disorders such as microcephaly, an abnormally small brain. Prof. Clemens Cabernard’s team at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, has examined a protein that is involved in the development of microcephaly.
Conventional methods of stock monitoring are unsuitable for certain fish species. For example, the infestation of an area with invasive Ponto-Caspian gobies cannot be identified in time by standard methods. Researchers at the University of Basel have developed a simple, effective and cost-efficient test for these introduced non-native fish.
People of the Neolithic age around 6,000 years ago were closely connected both in life and death. This became evident in a detailed archaeological and anthropological of a collective grave containing 50 bodies near Burgos, northern Spain.
With increasing age, the propensity to take physical, social, legal or financial risks decreases. Researchers from the University of Basel and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin were able to show how factors such as poverty and income equality play a role.
The Thalamus not only relays visual signals from the eye to the visual cortex as previously thought, but also conveys additional, contextual information. Integrating these different signals is essential to understand and interpret what we see in the world around us.
For a long time it has been known that the protein TOR – Target of Rapamycin – controls cell growth and is involved in the development of diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Researchers at the University of Basel’s Biozentrum together with scientists from ETH Zurich have now examined the structure of mammalian TOR complex 1 (mTORC1) in more detail. The scientists have revealed its unique architecture in their latest publication in “Science”.
Basel Biologists hope to develop a new drug to combat bacterial biofilms in the lungs of patients suffering from cystic fibrosis. The Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI) is funding the project “Therapeptix” at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel with 350,000 Swiss francs. Two more Biozentrum researchers are therefore heading towards professional independence and the establishment of a spin-off.
