news 2015

Mice suffer from a decrease in biological fitness if their internal clock is mixed up Mice with deviant internal rhythms due to a genetic mutation have fewer offspring and shorter life spans than normal conspecifics whose rhythms follow the 24-hr cycle of a day more accurately. This discovery was made by a team of scientists led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and Princeton University.

Increasing the level of a certain DNA-modified enzyme in the brain significantly improves cognitive ability. The discovery was made by the research team led by Hilmar Bading at the Interdisciplinary Center for Neurosciences of Heidelberg University. Mouse experiments showed that the Dnmt3a2 protein can boost memory performance in the animals.

A German-Dutch team has succeeded in immunizing dromedaries against the MERS virus. As the camels appear to be the major reservoir of the virus, the vaccine should also reduce the risk of future outbreaks of the disease in humans. Research on MERS has identified camels as the primary source of human infections, although the virus causes only mild symptoms in that host.

For the first time, biopsies of patients with irritable bowel syndrome have shown that the nerves in their gut wall respond poorly to a cocktail of inflammatory substances. This refutes the previous theory that patients with irritable bowel syndrome have an overly sensitive gut. The new study by scientists of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) was carried out in collaboration with several German hospitals.

The cognitive map for spatial navigation is thought to rely on grid cells. Scientists at LMU and Harvard University have now put forward a mathematical theory that explains key grid-cell features and how these give rise to a neural metric for space. One year ago, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to the discoverers of the mammalian "GPS system" for spatial navigation.

Six researchers from Europe reveal just how far they go to discover some of nature's deepest secrets or test novel technologies. Among them: Prof. Elisa Resconi, experimental physicist from TUM. Find this and more exciting stories about science and innovation from Europe in the new issue of the Technologist magazine.

Researchers from the Heidelberg University Biochemistry Center (BZH) have discovered a complex of four proteins that, much like a multi-tool pocketknife, serves as a knife, a file and a pair of scissors in the manufacture of ribosomes. The complex helps eliminate the residual ribonucleic acid (RNA) that are produced during the manufacturing of the ribsome and must be removed to complete the process.

If rubbish is too big and unwieldy for normal household waste, its removal becomes the job of specialized experts. Researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now discovered, in cooperation with colleagues from the UK, how large, fused cells help our body to deal with bulky items that may otherwise obstruct normal physiological processes.

The effect of a widespread genetic variant that increases the risk for childhood asthma can be neutralized. A new study shows that young infants are particularly responsive to the positive influence of exposure to farm dust. LMU asthma researchers have shown, for the first time, that specific environmental influences can neutralize the effect of a prevalent genetic variant that increases risk for childhood asthma.

Whether in the form of antibodies, enzymes or carriers: proteins play a crucial role in biology. While researchers have been able to at least partially determine the three-dimensional structure of many proteins, the structures of many other protein building blocks and even entire protein molecules remain as yet unknown.

Both in materials science and in biomedical research it is important to be able to view minute nanostructures, for example in carbon-fiber materials and bones. A team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the University of Lund, Charité hospital in Berlin and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) have now developed a new computed tomography method based on the scattering, rather than on the absorption, of X-rays.

Agglutinated proteins in the brain, known as amyloid-? plaques, are a key characteristic of Alzheimer's. One treatment option uses special antibodies to break down these plaques. This approach yielded good results in the animal model, but for reasons that are not yet clear, it has so far been unsuccessful in patient studies.

In laboratory experiments on the basic mechanisms that cause Alzheimer's dementia, an international research team led by Heidelberg neurobiologist Ulrike Müller and a team of French scientists have succeeded in largely "repairing" the nerve cell damage typical in this disease. The researchers took a closer look at a key protein in Alzheimer's pathogenisis, APP, and one of its cleavage products APPs'.

Neurobiologists at Freie Universität Berlin Demonstrate Significance of Sleep for Learning Processes in Bees Biologists at Freie Universität Berlin in the group of the highly regarded bee researcher Randolf Menzel have demonstrated for the first time the importance of deep sleep for learning processes in the brains of insects.

Usually, harvesting energy and raw materials from plants requires many process steps and aggressive chemicals. To make these processes more efficient and resource saving, researchers are looking for suitable enzymes. Using neutrons, researchers have now investigated the reaction mechanism of an important class of enzymes: the glycosidases.

An international team of scientists, led by Prof. Roland Rad at the University Hospital Klinikum rechts der Isar of Technical University of Munich (TUM), has developed a multiplexed screening approach together with colleagues of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. The method can be used to mutate simultaneously many different genes in adult mice.

For some years now it has been possible to generate high-brilliance X-rays using ring-shaped particle accelerators (synchrotron sources). However, such installations are several hundred meters in diameter and cost billions of euros. The world's first mini synchrotron was inaugurated today at Technical University of Munich (TUM).

Changes in lifestyle could reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. That was the conclusion of a study conducted by researchers of Heidelberg University's Network Aging Research (NAR), who examined the data from two independent epidemiological studies. Carriers of the ApoE4 genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's may be able to reduce their increased risk of cognitive decline by reducing their cholesterol level, especially if they also suffer from cardiovascular disease.

10/27/2015 Three professors from Würzburg University have been commended as "highly cited researchers". Thomas Reuters awards this title to researchers whose work receives exceptional attention worldwide and is highly cited by scientists. Professor Laurens Molenkamp is "Citation Laureate". Professor Jörg Vogel and Professor Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter have been newly added to the list that was updated on 30 October 2015 to join Professor Frank Würthner, who has been on the list since 2014.

Plants adapt their flowering time to the temperature in their surroundings. But what exactly triggers their flowering at the molecular level? Can this factor switch flowering on or off and thus respond to changes in the climate? In a study currently published in PLOS Genetics, a team headed by Professor Claus Schwechheimer from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) describes a molecular mechanism with which plants adapt their flowering time to ambient temperatures and thereby indicate ways in which the flowering time can be predicted on the basis of genetic information.