Still’s disease is a serious orphan disease manifested by high fevers, skin and joint involvement, including paralysis, as well as damage to other organs such as the liver or spleen.
University of Geneva researchers have discovered that delayed neuronal migration in the foetus causes behavioural disorders comparable to autism.
A human being’s psychological make-up depends on an array of emotional and motivational parameters, such as desire, suffering or the need for security. In addition, it includes spatial and temporal dimensions that also play a key role in rationalising the decisions we make and planning our actions
Whenever we need to communicate in secret, a cryptographic key is needed. For this key to work, it must consist of numbers chosen at random without any structure – just the opposite of using the birthdate of our favourite pet. But, for a human, it is extremely difficult to choose without creating any bias, even by hitting the keyboard chaotically. To solve this problem, researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, have developed a new random numbers generator based on the principles of quantum physics.
Recent articles have declared that deposits of mineral raw materials (copper, zinc, etc.) will be exhausted within a few decades. An international team, including the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, has shown that this is incorrect and that the resources of most mineral commodities are sufficient to meet the growing demand from industrialization and future demographic changes. Future shortages will arise not from physical exhaustion of different metals but from causes related to industrial exploitation, the economy, and environmental or societal pressures on the use of mineral resources. The report can be read in the journal Geochemical Perspectives.
The 2014–2015 Ebola epidemic affected several countries in West Africa, leading to the death of more than 11'000 people. Although this epidemic of Ebolavirus disease is over, there is no knowing if, when or where another may strike. It is therefore more important than ever to find a reliable vaccine against this deadly disease. Research on vaccines, which was ongoing during the epidemic in West Africa, is now yielding promising results.
The degree of pollution of rivers resulting from human activities is assessed using different biotic indices. The latter reflect the ecological status of a river based on the quantity and diversity of organisms selected as bioindicators, due to their ecological preferences and tolerance to pollution. This is the case of diatoms, algae consisting of a single cell surrounded by a silica skeleton, recommended by the European Union and Switzerland as one of the ideal bioindicators for rivers and lakes.
A multidisciplinary team of biologists, physicists and computer scientists lead by Michel Milinkovitch, professor at the Department of Genetics and Evolution of the UNIGE Faculty of Science, Switzerland and Group Leader at the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, realised that the brown juvenile ocellated lizard (Timon lepidus) gradually transforms its skin colour as it ages to reach an intricate adult labyrinthine pattern where each scale is either green or black.
Like almost all light-sensitive living beings, human beings follow biological rhythms set on a period of about 24 hours. The circadian clock (from Latin “circa” and “dies”, which means “about a day”) therefore describes the internal system that allows us to anticipate the changes of day and night by regulating nearly all the aspects of our physiology and behaviour.
Using data from brain imaging techniques that enable visualising the brain’s activity, a neuroscientist at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and a Parisian ENT surgeon have managed to decipher brain reorganisation processes at work when people start to lose their hearing, and thus predict the success or failure of a cochlear implant among people who have become profoundly deaf in their adult life. The results of this research may be found in Nature Communications.
The world’s most valuable copper deposits, known as porphyry deposits, originate from cooling magma. But how can we predict the size of these deposits? What factors govern the amount of copper present?
Neuroscientists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have been trying to answer these questions by studying the olfactory system of mammals. They have succeeded in identifying the complementary role played by two distinct kinds of neurons in processing olfactory information and the different brain re-organisation that occurs depending on the context.
The Earth has known several mass extinctions over the course of its history. One of the most important happened at the Permian-Triassic boundary 250 million years ago. But researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, working alongside the University of Zurich, discovered that this extinction took place during a short ice age which preceded the global climate warming.
The terahertz waves span frequency ranges between the infrared spectrum (used, for example, for night vision) and gigahertz waves (which find their application, among other, in Wi-Fi connections).
Since the early seventies, scientists have been developing brain-machine interfaces; the main application being the use of neural prosthesis in paralyzed patients or amputees.
Synthetic organic chemistry consists of transforming existing molecules into new molecular structures or assemblies. These new molecular systems are then used in a myriad of ways in everyday life - in a wide range of sectors, such as public health, energy and environment, for use in drugs, solar cells, fragrances, and so on.
Lymphoma is a cancer that affects lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell. The disease originates in a lymphoid organ (lymph node, spleen, or bone marrow) before spreading through the blood to infiltrate not only other lymphoid organs but also other tissues. Every year, nearly 2,000 people in Switzerland are diagnosed with lymphoma, a disease that can be very aggressive, resisting standard treatments with chemotherapeutic drugs. Today, researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), Switerland, give a new hope to patients. Their innovative approach consists in using an antibody able to neutralize a specific protein to block the migration of lymphoma cells, thus preventing the disease from developing. This still experimental immunotherapeutic strategy paves the way for new treatments against lymphoma. The results can be read in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology.
The potential evolutionary link between hairs in mammals, feathers in birds and scales in reptiles has been debated for decades. Today, researchers of the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland, demonstrate that all these skin appendages are homologous: they share a common ancestry. On the basis of new analyses of embryonic development, the Swiss biologists evidenced molecular and micro-anatomical signatures that are identical between hairs, feathers and scales at their early developmental stages. These new observations, published today in Science Advances, indicate that the three structures evolved from their common reptilian ancestor.
Coronary or peripheral bypasses are the most frequently performed vascular operations. Although one million patients per year and around the world, undergo this intervention, its failure rate reaches 50%, because of poor vessel healing, leading to vessel graft occlusion. To improve the outcome of bypasses, researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) work together with medical doctors from the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV). They developed a gel containing microparticles –‘GeM’, enabling the controlled release of a drug inhibiting cellular over-proliferation. Administered locally, directly on the bypass graft during surgery, this preventive treatment will reduce the risk of obstruction reoccurrence. This research can be read in The Journal of Controlled Release.
The unusual electronic properties of some superconducting materials permit lossless and dense electrical currents at very low temperatures, even in high magnetic fields. Conductors made of these materials are thus ideal for winding coils to generate very high magnetic fields, which are essential for a number of applications like magnetic medical imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy for the analysis of complex molecules or even accelerator magnets. To generate ever-higher magnetic fields, physicists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and an R&D team of Bruker BioSpin in Fällanden (ZH), both in Switzerland, started a collaboration in 2012, which was partially funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Together, they successfully developed and tested the first superconducting coil able to reach a magnetic field of 25 Tesla. A first in Europe.
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