Category Biology/Biotechnology

Researchers show which molecular processes promote secondary diseases in obesity. Obesity and overweight are among the biggest health challenges of the 21st century, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Almost 60 percent of Germans are considered overweight, while 25 percent are obese. Moreover, being overweight often triggers severe secondary diseases such as diabetes, arteriosclerosis, or heart attacks.

Immunological processes determine the course of this disease. As part of a new study, a group of LMU researchers led by Dr...

Individual Candida albicans yeast strains in the human gut are as different from each other as the humans that carry them, and some C. albicans strains may damage the gut of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to a new study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine. The findings suggest a possible way to tailor treatments to individual patients in the future.

The researchers, who report their findings March 16 in Nature, used an array of techniques to study strains, or genetic variants, of Candida f...

The p53 protein protects our cells from cancer and is an interesting target for cancer treatments. The problem is, however, that it breaks down rapidly in the cell. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have now found an unusual way of stabilising the protein and making it more potent. By adding a spider silk protein to p53, they show that it is possible to create a protein that is more stable and capable of killing cancer cells. The study is published in the journal Structure.

P53 plays a key r...

Physicists have discovered a new way to coat soft robots in materials that allow them to move and function in a more purposeful way. The research, led by the UK’s University of Bath, is described today in Science Advances.

Authors of the study believe their breakthrough modelling on ‘active matter’ could mark a turning point in the design of robots. With further development of the concept, it may be possible to determine the shape, movement and behaviour of a soft solid not by its natural elasticity but by human-controlled activity on its surface.

The surface of an ordinary soft material always shrinks into a sphere...