Every human cell is surrounded by a sugar coating known as the glycocalyx. It not only interacts with its environment but also reveals a great deal about cells’ internal states. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) have mapped sugar structures on cell surfaces using high-resolution microscopy. In initial studies, they were able to correlate the spatial arrangement of the sugar structures with specific physiological cell states. The results, recently published in Nature Nanotechnology, could pave the way for new diagnostic approaches, such as tumor detection. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft Hier jetzt das aktuell Außergewöhnliche…

In a condition known as “IgLON5 encephalitis”, the immune system mistakenly attacks cells in the brain. This leads to brain inflammation and neuronal damage, which can manifest as sleep disturbances, cognitive impairment, and movement disorders. Researchers at DZNE and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have now identified fundamental mechanisms underlying this rare but severe neurodegenerative disease. Their findings, based on applying antibodies from affected individuals in neuronal cell cultures and mice, have been published in the journal “Science Advances”. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft Hier jetzt das aktuell Außergewöhnliche auswählen …

• Multi-day gene activity profiles from the same cells • Long-term analysis of cell communication in mixed cultures • Potential applications in organoids and tumor microenvironments Until now, studying the genetic processes in cells required destroying them – making it impossible to observe these processes over extended periods of time. A team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Helmholtz Munich has developed a new method to repeatedly obtain up-to-date genetic information from living cells. In the future, this will enable better monitoring of stem cells for therapies or the effects of drugs within cells. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft…

Pflanzen sind ständig Stress ausgesetzt – durch Krankheitserreger, Hitze oder andere Umweltfaktoren. Dabei können Proteine beschädigt werden, und die Zellfunktion gerät aus dem Gleichgewicht. Forschende der Ruhr-Universität Bochum um Prof. Dr. Suayb Üstün haben entdeckt, wie Pflanzenzellen auf diesen sogenannten Proteinstress reagieren und ihre inneren Prozesse gezielt anpassen. Sie zeigen, dass Zellen unter Stress dem Abbau beschädigter Proteine den Vorzug vor der Energiegewinnung durch Photosynthese geben. Die Erkenntnis dieser Zusammenhänge könnte helfen, Pflanzen robuster zu machen. Die Studie ist in der Zeitschrift Molecular Cell vom 30. April 2026 veröffentlicht. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft Hier jetzt das aktuell Außergewöhnliche auswählen …

Stem-cell memory T (TSCM) cells are able to self-renew, persist long term, and mount potent anti-tumor responses. These properties make them attractive for next-generation CAR T-cell therapies. However, their clinical potential has not previously been demonstrated in humans. A team of researchers co-led by Professor Luca Gattinoni from the Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy (LIT) and Dr. James Kochenderfer from the National Cancer Institute has published a new study in Cell reporting, for the first time, that CAR T cells designed to acquire a TSCM phenotype demonstrate a favorable safety profile and can induce complete remissions at remarkably low doses without…

T-Stammgedächtniszellen (TSCM) erneuern sich selbst, überleben langfristig und können starke Anti-Tumor-Reaktionen erzeugen. Deshalb sind sie vielversprechende Kandidaten für CAR T Zelltherapien der nächsten Generation. Bisher fehlte der Nachweis für die Wirksamkeit beim Menschen. Ein Team unter Leitung von Prof. Luca Gattinoni vom Leibniz-Institut für Immuntherapie (LIT) und Dr. James Kochenderfer vom National Cancer Institute berichtet in der Fachzeitschrift Cell, dass CAR T Zellen mit TSCM Phänotyp in einer frühen klinischen Studie sicher und verträglich waren. Zudem bewirkten sie in niedrigen Dosen komplette Tumorrückbildungen – und das ohne eine chemotherapeutische Vorbehandlung. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft Hier jetzt das aktuell Außergewöhnliche auswählen…

Researchers have discovered that a key protein, cFLIP, is essential for regulating programmed cell death in lymphoma cells. This discovery provides insights into the mechanisms of this cancer’s cell death evasion and could open up new therapeutic routes for patients who do not respond to therapies / publication in “Blood” Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft Hier jetzt das aktuell Außergewöhnliche auswählen …

Biology: Breakthrough publication in Nucleic Acids Research Just like in a huge factory, components must also arrive in the right place at exactly the right time in living cells. A research team headed by Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has examined how the transport protein Rrm4 acts as a highly precise logistics expert in the fungus Ustilago maydis. Due to its significance, the work has been published as a “breakthrough manuscript” in the renowned scientific journal Nucleic Acids Research (NAR). Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft Hier jetzt das aktuell Außergewöhnliche auswählen …

Photosynthetic bacteria helped shape Planet Earth. Among them are cyanobacteria that produced the oxygen in our atmosphere and made complex life possible, captivating scientists for decades. Now, researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) report a surprising new discovery—a system thought to separate DNA has developed to sculpt the shape of the cell in cyanobacteria instead. The results, published in Science, shed light on how protein systems evolve and how multicellularity emerged in this type of ecologically essential bacteria. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft Hier jetzt das aktuell Außergewöhnliche auswählen …

Researchers showed that the level of synaptic impairment seen in stem cell-derived neurons of schizophrenia patients, generated from blood samples, predicted their level of cognitive impairment. This is the first time that researchers could show an intraindividual mechanistic explanation for the individual degree of schizophrenia’s cognitive symptoms. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft Hier jetzt das aktuell Außergewöhnliche auswählen …

An international team, including scientists from Leipzig University, has gained important new insights into the regulation of food intake in mammals. The study, recently published in the renowned scientific journal PNAS, shows that the relative availability of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids within the cell’s branched membrane system – the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) – plays a central role in regulating food intake. The researchers also identified a potential genetic precursor of the GLP-1R/GIPR receptor group. This could open up new avenues for the development of therapies for obesity and metabolic disorders. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft Hier jetzt das aktuell Außergewöhnliche…

DKMS recognizes outstanding research and supports young scientists in the field of stem cell transplantation and cell therapy for hematological diseases at the conference of the European Society For Blood And Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) in Madrid. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft Hier jetzt das aktuell Außergewöhnliche auswählen …

Discovery offers new avenues for treating dementia and cancer. An international research team from Bielefeld University and the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP) has uncovered a previously unknown regulatory mechanism in human cells. For the first time, they demonstrate how a key molecular switch regulates the cell’s “recycling centers.” The findings, published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications, provide important insights into the understanding of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

A new study shows that the hourglass model of embryonic development is visible not only at the level of whole embryos, but already within individual cell lineages. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology and Kiel University have demonstrated that cells from different species use particularly similar genetic programmes during the middle phase of development. This opens up a new perspective on how conserved developmental processes and species-specific differences arise. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

A lack of vitamin B2 makes tumour cells more susceptible to a unique form of cell death. This was discovered by researchers at the Rudolf Virchow Centre at the University of Würzburg. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Thursday, March 12, is the big day: A research rocket from the REXUS program launched into the stratosphere from the Esrange Space Center in Sweden, carrying the THRIVE module with components of the cell-based StellarHeal wound care material from Würzburg, Hanover, and Dresden. Preparations for the current rocket launch have been underway since last November, and now it’s time to keep our fingers crossed that the experiments yield good results. Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Researchers have discovered a previously unknown signalling cascade that determines how powerful our innate immune system responds to virus infections. This discovery has broad implications for inflammatory diseases, cancer, and neurodegeneration / publication in ’Nature Cell Biology‘ Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Forscher*innen haben eine bisher unbekannte Signalkaskade entdeckt, die bestimmt, wie stark unser angeborenes Immunsystem auf Virusinfektionen reagiert. Diese Entdeckung hat weitreichende Auswirkungen für die Behandlung von Entzündungskrankheiten, Krebs und Neurodegeneration / Veröffentlichung in ‚Nature Cell Biology‘ Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Muhammad A Shah, Emily L Denton, Cheryl H Arrowsmith, Mathieu Lupien and Matthieu Schapira Abstract Background The notion that epigenetic mechanisms may be central to cancer initiation and progression is supported by recent next-generation sequencing efforts revealing that genes involved in chromatin-mediated signaling are recurrently mutated in cancer patients. Results Here, we analyze mutational and transcriptional profiles from TCGA and the ICGC across a collection 441 chromatin factors and histones. Chromatin factors essential for rapid replication are frequently overexpressed, and those that maintain genome stability frequently mutated. We identify novel mutation hotspots such as K36M in histone H3.1, and uncover…

Cancer is a group of almost 200 diseases that involve variety of changes in cell structure, morphology, and physiology. Cancer phenotype is underlying several alterations in cellular dynamics with three most critical features, which includes self-sufficiency in growth signals and insensitivity to inhibitory signals, evasion of programmed cell death and limitless replicative potential with a potential for the invasion of other organs. Cancer disease is widespread among metazoans. Some properties of cancer cells such as uncontrolled cell proliferation, lack of apoptosis, hypoxia, fermentative metabolism and free cell motility, i.e. metastasis, resemble a prokaryotic lifestyle, which leads to the assumption of…

Most cancer cells utilize aerobic glycolysis irrespective of their tissue of origin. The alteration from oxidative phosphorylation to glycolysis – called the Warburg effect – is an universal phenomen and has now become a diagnostic tool for cancer detection. Warburg O, Posener K, Negelein E. (1924) Über den Stoffwechsel der Carcinomzelle. Biochem Z. 152, 309–344.

Tomasetti and Vogelstein show that the lifetime risk of cancers of many different types is strongly correlated with the total number of divisions of the normal self-renewing cells maintaining that tissue’s homeostasis. These results suggest that only a third of the variation in cancer risk among tissues is attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions. The majority is due to bad luck, that is, random mutations arising during DNA replication in normal, noncancerous stem cells. Tomasetti C, Vogelstein B (2015): Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions. Science 2 January 2015:…

Energy transfer in material solids is driven primarily by differences in intensive thermodynamic quantities such as pressure and temperature. The crucial observation  in quantum-theoretical models was the consideration of the heat capacity as associated with the vibrations of atoms in a crystalline solid. However, living organisms are essentially isothermal. Because of very little differences in temperature between different parts of a cell it is assumed that energy flow in living organisms is mediated by differences in the turnover time of various metabolic processes in the cell, which occur in cyclical fashion. It has been shown that the cycle time of…

Bohm used the term ‘holomovement’ which is an unbroken and undivided totality and carries an implicate order which is he totality of an order including both the manifested and non-manifested aspects of the order. Non-local quantum phenomena reside in a subtler level than quantum level that is the quantum potential which sustains intimately within the underlying implicates order and the quantum processes are driven by information from quantum potential. A global quantum field of a cell, which can be described as a super orbital, provides many levels of interactions among all particles of a cell. From quantum metabolism pint of…

Low non-specific, low intensity laser illumination (635, 670 or 830 nm) apparently enhances centriole replication and promotes cell division, what is the opposite of a desired cancer therapy. In the contrary, centrioles are sensitive to coherent light. Then higher intensity laser illumination – still below heating threshold – may selectively target centrioles, impair mitosis and be a beneficial therapy against malignancy. If centrioles utilize quantum photons for entanglement, properties of centrosomes/centrioles approached more specifically could be useful for therapy. Healthy centrioles for a given organism or tissue differentiation should then have specific quantum optical properties detectable through some type of…