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…

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…

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…

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…

D4: Molecular and Cellular Structural Biology III – 17002 (2 hrs/week; 2 CP; Spring 2026) Sebastian Hiller This lecture series leads towards the understanding of the structural and functional aspects of biological membranes…

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…

Our cells continuously receive external signals, which are transmitted across the cell membrane into the cell, to be processed in the cell nucleus. Various signaling pathways are found in the cell membrane. One is the…

How organs develop and how they grow to the right size and shape are fundamental questions in developmental biology. The morphogen Dpp is a signaling molecule controlling the development of different organs with regard to…

Infections such as tuberculosis or typhoid fever are caused by bacteria and can usually be treated well with antibiotics, at least as long as the bacteria are not resistant. However, full eradication of the bacteria cannot…