Bartonella are bacteria that can cause diverse infectious diseases in man, such as cat-scratch disease. In order to prevent the accumulation of mutations during the infection cycle, pathogens require efficient DNA repair…

Bartonella are bacteria that are transmitted from blood-sucking insects to mammals, including humans. There they enter the red blood cells and cause various symptoms. An example of such a human infection with a worldwide…

Throughout our body there is a dense, widely ramified network of blood vessels. It is estimated to be about 150,000 kilometers in length. The vessels supply all cells, even those in most far away regions of the body with…

The incidence of liver cancer, also known as hepatocellular carcinoma, is steadily increasing. In the last twenty years, the number of cases has almost doubled in Switzerland. Hepatocellular carcinoma is usually diagnosed at…

With its hundreds of thousands of nerve cells, the vertebrate brain is the most complex organ in the animal kingdom. During vertebrate evolution not only have the number of neurons and consequently the volume of the brain…

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…

Fitness clubs are booming: New gyms are springing up like mushrooms. More and more people are striving to build up and strengthen their muscles. But what exactly happens in the muscle during training? In their recent work,…

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…

Our body is made up of a wide variety of cells with the most diverse functions. Irrespective of being heart, liver or nerve cells, however, they all contain the same genetic information. The reason why cells develop…

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…