Microwave field imaging is becoming increasingly important, as microwaves play an essential role in modern communications technology and can also be used in medical diagnostics. Researchers from the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and the Department of Physics at the University of Basel have now independently developed two new methods for imaging microwave fields.
Researchers at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel have developed a new technique using nanobodies. Employing the so-called “Morphotrap”, the distribution of the morphogen Dpp, which plays an important role in wing development, could be selectively manipulated and analyzed for the first time in the fruit fly. The results of the study have been published in the current issue of “Nature”.
Tuberculosis bacteria employ an unusual strategy. They present themselves to the immune system in a constant shape. Their antigenic variation is low what provokes a severe immune response. As a consequence, the bacteria enter the lungs from where they are easily transmitted from humans to humans by coughing.
The international research project ‘imagineTrains’ studies perceptions, ideas, and problems that decision makers and passengers associate with rail as a mode of transport.
Our innate immune system rapidly eliminates invading pathogens. When a pathogen is detected in the body, the “inflammasome” protein complex initiates the defense response of the immune cells. By combining two high-resolution methods, researchers from the University of Basel’s Biozentrum have now determined the atomic structure of an important part of the inflammasome.
Researchers at the University of Basel have succeeded in building protein gates for artificial nano-vesicles that become transparent only under specific conditions. The gate responds to certain pH values, triggering a reaction and releasing active agents at the desired location.
One in four young people have experienced chronic pain and a mental disorder. According to a new report in the Journal of Pain, the onset of pain is often preceded by mental disorders: an above-average rate of incidence of depression, anxiety disorders, and behavioral disorders occurs before the onset of headaches, back pain and neck pain.
When cells from the connective tissue collide, they repel one another – this phenomenon was discovered more than 50 years ago. It is only now, however, that researchers at the University of Basel have discovered the molecular basis for this process. Their findings could have important implications for cancer research.
Displaying false information in order to deceive is one of the most ingenious survival strategies in the natural world. Zoologists at the University of Basel have now revealed a particular example of this kind of trickery in an African cichlid that is specially adapted to feeding on the scales of other fish.
