Dual pathogen attack

More than 85 percent of deaths during the Spanish flu pandemic were not primarily due to the influenza virus, but to a secondary bacterial infection

26-May-2023 - According to estimates, around 50 million people died from the Spanish flu that broke out in 1918. This pandemic was triggered by a highly infectious strain of the influenza virus. Based on historical and clinical data, we know today that in a large proportion of cases the cause of death was not ...

Cattle stomachs help break down plastic

04-Aug-2021 - New results from a group of researchers at the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (acib) and BOKU Vienna show that bacteria from cow stomachs can be used to degrade polyesters, which are used to make textiles, packaging and compostable plastic bags, among other things. On the one hand, ...

Microbes in cow stomachs can break down plastic

Eco-friendly way to reduce litter?

07-Jul-2021 - Plastic is notoriously hard to break down, but researchers in Austria have found that bacteria from a cow's rumen - one of the four compartments of its stomach - can digest certain types of the ubiquitous material, representing a sustainable way to reduce plastic litter. The scientists suspected ...

Electric shocks used to kill bacteria

Electric fields destroy Listeria without damaging nutrients

25-Oct-2018 - Low temperatures and an acidic environment create the ideal conditions for applying an effective method of inactivating Listeria (and other germs) in the processing of whey protein solutions – without destroying valuable nutrients. A team from the University of Natural Resources and Life ...

Therapeutic Antibodies Show Variations

Subtle Differences: Therapeutic Antibodies Vary Depending on Production System

11-Jul-2018 - Differences in production methods for therapeutic antibodies can lead to variations in their structure, depending on the recombinant procedure selected. The distinctions, which are based on a number of glycosylations, even impact antibodies’ stability. This was the result of a high-precision ...

Bioremediation fungus yields its secrets

Gene transfer from bacteria – and the corresponding stress!

30-Nov-2017 - Thanks to genes acquired from bacteria, a fungus can degrade an environmentally harmful hydrocarbon - and comes under considerable stress in the process. These remarkable research findings, which were published recently, were obtained by a group from the University of Natural Resources and Life ...

New insights into latent HIV infections

27-Sep-2016 - In spite of ever more effective therapies, HIV keeps managing to survive in the body. A comprehensive project conducted by the Austrian Science Fund FWF has clarified the molecular processes which contribute to this effect. In the process, approaches were discovered for possible therapies to ...

Newly discovered metabolism certifies evolutionary advantage for yeast

25-Sep-2015 - Because of its long and varied use, yeast is one of the best studied organisms. Besides its industrial application Pichia pastoris is also used by scientists as a model organism for studying cell structures. Everything seemed familiar - until this year. Researchers of the Austrian Centre of ...

Plastics from renewable raw materials

Body automatically breaks down implants

20-Sep-2013 - Researchers from Graz University of Technology, together with colleagues from the Medical University of Graz, Vienna University of Technology and the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, have managed to develop absorbable implants to promote bone healing which are broken ...

Take Your Vitamins!

Tocopherol Derivatives as New Dioxin Receptor Antagonists

22-Mar-2011 - When reactive oxygen species (ROS) hit the body, vitamin E helps to prevent damage to tissues and cells by acting as an antioxidant. The health benefits of vitamin E are numerous, and in fact, studies have found that people with higher levels of vitamin E in their system have a lower risk of ...