Breast cancer is by far the most frequent type of cancer affecting women and a leading cause of death, despite advances in its detection and treatment. There are different forms of breast cancer and the causes are just as…

When our innate immune system detects a pathogen it mounts a potent inflammatory response that has the capacity to contain and eliminate the infection, but typically also causes significant damage to the inflamed tissue.…

Since his time as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Marek Basler has been fascinated by a tiny bacterial injection apparatus, the so-called type 6 secretion system (T6SS). This nanomachine works like…

When pathogens infect an organism, the defense system immediately starts to fight the bacteria. To escape the patrolling immune cells, some bacteria invade and replicate inside host cells. However, the host has developed…

Simply grasping a coffee cup needs fine motor coordination with the highest precision. This required performance of the brain is an ability that can also be learned and trained. Prof. Kelly Tan's research group at the…

In mammals, movement is controlled by circuits spanning throughout the central nervous system from the cortex to the spinal cord. The role of motor cortex in the control of movement is still unclear. In humans, lesions to…

Membrane proteins are a basic component of each individual cell of the human body and play a vital role in the cell’s structure, metabolism and transport. They ensure that many substances, such as hormones and other…

For about one hundred years it has been known that nutrient restriction and moderate stress can significantly prolong life. The researchers led by Prof. Mihaela Zavolan and Prof. Anne Spang, both at the Biozentrum of the…

Cells live and survive by taking up proteins, recycling and reusing or degrading them. The proteins are located on the cell surface and are transported from here into the cell’s interior. About 80 percent of these membrane…

Genetic information is protected in the cell nucleus by a membrane that contains numerous nuclear pores. These pores facilitate the traffic of proteins known as importins that deliver molecular cargoes between the nucleus…