When someone is confronted with ‘foreign’ material, be it viruses, bacteria, fungi, but also donor organs following transplantation, immune cells called T cells come into action to inactivate and destroy the ”foreign”…

The widely used anti-diabetes drug metformin not only reduces blood sugar but also has an anti-cancer effect. However, the metformin dose commonly used in the treatment of diabetes is too low to inhibit cancer growth. The…

The blood vessels form a widely ramified supply system that passes through our body from head to toe. They serve as pathways for blood cells and transport oxygen as well as nutrients into each individual organ. In the…

Every single cell of our body contains hundreds of tiny power plants, the mitochondria, which produce the energy required by the body, whether it be for walking, digesting or to ponder ideas. This inevitably generates…

Cells are the building blocks of all living creatures. In order to form a complex organism and stay healthy, cells need to communicate with each other and integrate the response within themselves. A group of enzymes,…

In certain infectious diseases, antibiotics are less effective than expected, as seen in infections caused by Salmonella bacteria, which can lead to illnesses such as typhoid fever. For many years, researchers believed that…

Autism occurs in about one percent of the population and is characterized by alterations in communication, repetitive behavior and social difficulties. There are numerous genetic factors involved in the development of…

All organisms need energy to live. We get energy from various components of our food. Our body uses a part of this energy directly and stores the rest. While glucose serves as an immediately available energy source, fats are…

Each living cell grows and divides, thus generating new offspring. This process is also known as the cell cycle. Strictly speaking, it describes a periodic repetition of two coordinated cycles: the duplication of a cell’s…

Fats are highly diverse molecules that serve as fuel and energy storage, and they constitute the building blocks for cell membranes, hormones and messengers. Despite the diversity of fats, all the fatty acids contained…