New findings offer hope towards novel tailored immunotherapies against brain tumours

Luxembourg Institute of Health unveils how brain cancer hijacks immune cells to its advantage

09-Apr-2024 - A comprehensive study led by Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) Dr Anna Golebiewska, Group Leader at the NORLUX Neuro-Oncology Laboratory, and Dr Alessandro Michelucci, Group leader of the Neuro-Immunology Group, shed light on the intricate interplay between glioblastoma (GBM) tumours and the ...

Insecticides affect aquatic insects in unexpected ways

24-Aug-2023 - Pesticide pollution of streams in agricultural areas has adverse effects for stream organisms. A new study, led by researchers from the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB), provides evidence that aquatic insect larvae respond to insecticide exposure with alterations of ...

Does COVID-19 accelerate the aging process of the brain?

Severe COVID-19 linked with molecular signatures of brain aging

13-Dec-2022 - Although COVID-19 is primarily a respiratory disease, neurological symptoms have been described in many COVID-19 patients, including in recovered individuals. Patients report symptoms including brain fog or lack of focused thinking, memory loss and depression, and scientists have demonstrated ...

A major advance in single-cell RNA data analysis

Researchers have developed a computational tool that can carry out accurate comparative analysis of complex single-cell sequencing datasets

25-Oct-2022 - New developments in high-throughput biological studies mean that the genes that are active in just a single cell can now be determined. However, analyzing the complex datasets that result can be challenging. Now, a team at Osaka University has developed CAPITAL, a new computational tool for ...

How many drinks is too many?

New study shows even low doses of alcohol prime brain for addiction

14-Sep-2022 - A new rodent study shows that even small quantities of alcohol can trigger epigenomic and transciptomic changes in brain circuitry in an area that is crucial in the development of addiction. What’s more, the University of Illinois Chicago researchers who conducted the study say that the pathways ...

Monitoring gene activities in living cells

Cell Biopsy instead of cell lysis

19-Aug-2022 - Researchers from ETH Zurich and EPFL are expanding the emerging field of single-​cell analysis with a ground-​breaking method: Live-​seq makes it possible to measure the activity of thousands of genes in a single cell without having to isolate and destroy it. Modern biology is increasingly ...

How protists crack the walls of algae

Orciraptor agilis produces a number of partly novel enzymes and binding proteins: Such enzymes could potentially be useful in industrial applications

20-Jun-2022 - A team of researchers led by Dr Sebastian Hess from the University of Cologne’s Institute of Zoology has studied the expression of carbohydrate-active enzymes in the unicellular organism Orciraptor agilis by RNA sequencing. Orciraptor is a so-called ‘protoplast feeder’ and lives exclusively from ...

Insights into the cellular and molecular changes in male infertility

14-Sep-2021 - “You can’t see the wood for the trees” is a phrase which we certainly don’t associate immediately with the medical examination and analysis of testicles. But in a certain way it applies here, too: testicles consist of many different types of cells, and up to now this complex quality prevented ...

Scientists develop “scifi-RNA-seq” method for ultra-high-throughput RNA sequencing in single cells

An efficient high-throughput method with a wide range of applications

02-Jun-2021 - Molecular analysis of single cells provides an important basis for precision medicine. Five years ago, scientists around the world came together to pursue the “Human Cell Atlas” project, with the aim of cataloging all cells in the human body. These data have helped, for example, to identify those ...

Study identifies noncoding RNA involved in immune response and sepsis

A long noncoding RNA regulates the expression of inflammatory genes

03-Feb-2021 - When the body's immune response to an infection gets out of control, the result can be sepsis, a life-threatening condition in which an overwhelming inflammatory response can lead rapidly to failure of multiple organs and death. In a new study, researchers at UC Santa Cruz have identified a long ...