Lipids and diabetes are closely linked
Université de Genève (University of Geneva)While sugar is the most frequently named culprit in the development of type 2 diabetes, a better understanding of the role of fats is also essential.
While sugar is the most frequently named culprit in the development of type 2 diabetes, a better understanding of the role of fats is also essential.
A team from UNIGE and Swiss TPH has published a large study covering more than a decade of data on the effects of mobile phones on semen quality of young men
About 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals, who had lived for hundreds of thousands of years in the western part of the Eurasian continent, gave way to Homo sapiens, who had arrived from Africa.
New pharmaceuticals, cleaner fuels, biodegradable plastics: in order to meet society’s needs, chemists have to develop new synthesis methods to obtain new products that do not exist in their natural state.
One in three people exposed to SARS-CoV2 is infected, and as many as two in five with the Omicron variant. In the case of immunity — conferred by vaccination, infection or a combination of the two — this rate drops to one in ten.
What is the risk of a volcano erupting? To answer this question, scientists need information about its underlying internal structure.
A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) has demonstrated that tau PET - a novel imaging technique for visualising the tau protein - can predict cognitive decline in patients much better than the imaging techniques normally used.
The cosmos is a unique laboratory for testing the laws of physics, in particular those of Euler and Einstein. Euler described the movements of celestial objects, while Einstein described the way in which celestial objects distort the Universe.
A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has identified how the influenza A virus manages to penetrate cells to infect them.
Two researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have discovered how to permanently transform the scales that normally cover the feet of chickens into feathers, by specificially modifying the expression of certain genes.
56 million years ago, the Earth experienced one of the largest and most rapid climate warming events in its history: the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which has similarities to current and future warming.
Negative emotions, anxiety and depression are thought to promote the onset of neurodegenerative diseases and dementia. But what is their impact on the brain and can their deleterious effects be limited?
Humans, animals, plants: all multicellular organisms are made up of specialized cells called differentiated cells.
Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers. Its treatment is mainly based on chemotherapy.
The hepatitis B virus (HBV) is responsible for one of the most serious and common infectious diseases. Transmitted through biological fluids, it attacks the liver cells.
Commonly used in medicine as an anaesthetic, ketamine is also increasingly prescribed to relieve depressive symptoms.
People with a severe form of diabetes, where the beta cells of the pancreas do not produce or no longer produce enough insulin, have no choice but to inject themselves regularly with artificial insulin in order to survive.
What are the barriers to the adoption of electric cars? Although the main financial and technological obstacles have been removed, their market share still needs to increase.
Human beings, like most organisms, are constantly exposed to alternating colder or warmer temperatures.
With more than 10% of the world’s population obese and 40% overweight, obesity constitutes one of the most crucial health challenges.
Circadian clocks, which regulate most of the physiological processes of living beings over a rhythm of about 24 hours, are one of the most fundamental biological mechanisms. By deciphering the cell migration mechanisms underlying the immune response, scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in Switzerland, and the Ludwigs-Maximilians University (LMU), in Germany, have shown that the activation of the immune system is modulated according to the time of day.
A baby born prematurely often has to be separated from its parents and placed in an incubator in intensive care.
The elephant proboscis (trunk) exhibits an extraordinary kinematic versatility as it can manipulate a single blade of grass but also carry loads up to 270 kilograms.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) affects about 7% of children, with a two out of three chance of persisting into adulthood.
A growing number of studies show that the environmental factors and lifestyle habits of pregnant women play an important role in the health of their child.
Being socially and emotionally competent from an early age is likely to help children win acceptance by their peers, build better relationships with teachers, and facilitate academic learning.
Emotions are complex phenomena that influence our minds, bodies and behaviour.
We need to know about these psychological and social profiles so we can understand how protective actions against contagious diseases are adopted, and then define the correct preventive approaches.
The existence of a planet the size of Earth around the closest star in the solar system, Proxima Centauri, has been confirmed by an international team of scientists including researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE).
Do bad dreams serve a real purpose? To answer this question, researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG), Switzerland
Still’s disease is a serious orphan disease manifested by high fevers, skin and joint involvement, including paralysis, as well as damage to other organs such as the liver or spleen.
University of Geneva researchers have discovered that delayed neuronal migration in the foetus causes behavioural disorders comparable to autism.
A human being’s psychological make-up depends on an array of emotional and motivational parameters, such as desire, suffering or the need for security. In addition, it includes spatial and temporal dimensions that also play a key role in rationalising the decisions we make and planning our actions
Whenever we need to communicate in secret, a cryptographic key is needed. For this key to work, it must consist of numbers chosen at random without any structure – just the opposite of using the birthdate of our favourite pet. But, for a human, it is extremely difficult to choose without creating any bias, even by hitting the keyboard chaotically. To solve this problem, researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, have developed a new random numbers generator based on the principles of quantum physics.
Recent articles have declared that deposits of mineral raw materials (copper, zinc, etc.) will be exhausted within a few decades. An international team, including the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, has shown that this is incorrect and that the resources of most mineral commodities are sufficient to meet the growing demand from industrialization and future demographic changes. Future shortages will arise not from physical exhaustion of different metals but from causes related to industrial exploitation, the economy, and environmental or societal pressures on the use of mineral resources. The report can be read in the journal Geochemical Perspectives.
The 2014–2015 Ebola epidemic affected several countries in West Africa, leading to the death of more than 11'000 people. Although this epidemic of Ebolavirus disease is over, there is no knowing if, when or where another may strike. It is therefore more important than ever to find a reliable vaccine against this deadly disease. Research on vaccines, which was ongoing during the epidemic in West Africa, is now yielding promising results.
The degree of pollution of rivers resulting from human activities is assessed using different biotic indices. The latter reflect the ecological status of a river based on the quantity and diversity of organisms selected as bioindicators, due to their ecological preferences and tolerance to pollution. This is the case of diatoms, algae consisting of a single cell surrounded by a silica skeleton, recommended by the European Union and Switzerland as one of the ideal bioindicators for rivers and lakes.
A multidisciplinary team of biologists, physicists and computer scientists lead by Michel Milinkovitch, professor at the Department of Genetics and Evolution of the UNIGE Faculty of Science, Switzerland and Group Leader at the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, realised that the brown juvenile ocellated lizard (Timon lepidus) gradually transforms its skin colour as it ages to reach an intricate adult labyrinthine pattern where each scale is either green or black.
Like almost all light-sensitive living beings, human beings follow biological rhythms set on a period of about 24 hours. The circadian clock (from Latin “circa” and “dies”, which means “about a day”) therefore describes the internal system that allows us to anticipate the changes of day and night by regulating nearly all the aspects of our physiology and behaviour.
Using data from brain imaging techniques that enable visualising the brain’s activity, a neuroscientist at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and a Parisian ENT surgeon have managed to decipher brain reorganisation processes at work when people start to lose their hearing, and thus predict the success or failure of a cochlear implant among people who have become profoundly deaf in their adult life. The results of this research may be found in Nature Communications.
The world’s most valuable copper deposits, known as porphyry deposits, originate from cooling magma. But how can we predict the size of these deposits? What factors govern the amount of copper present?
Neuroscientists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have been trying to answer these questions by studying the olfactory system of mammals. They have succeeded in identifying the complementary role played by two distinct kinds of neurons in processing olfactory information and the different brain re-organisation that occurs depending on the context.
The Earth has known several mass extinctions over the course of its history. One of the most important happened at the Permian-Triassic boundary 250 million years ago. But researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, working alongside the University of Zurich, discovered that this extinction took place during a short ice age which preceded the global climate warming.
The terahertz waves span frequency ranges between the infrared spectrum (used, for example, for night vision) and gigahertz waves (which find their application, among other, in Wi-Fi connections).
Since the early seventies, scientists have been developing brain-machine interfaces; the main application being the use of neural prosthesis in paralyzed patients or amputees.
Synthetic organic chemistry consists of transforming existing molecules into new molecular structures or assemblies. These new molecular systems are then used in a myriad of ways in everyday life - in a wide range of sectors, such as public health, energy and environment, for use in drugs, solar cells, fragrances, and so on.
Lymphoma is a cancer that affects lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell. The disease originates in a lymphoid organ (lymph node, spleen, or bone marrow) before spreading through the blood to infiltrate not only other lymphoid organs but also other tissues. Every year, nearly 2,000 people in Switzerland are diagnosed with lymphoma, a disease that can be very aggressive, resisting standard treatments with chemotherapeutic drugs. Today, researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), Switerland, give a new hope to patients. Their innovative approach consists in using an antibody able to neutralize a specific protein to block the migration of lymphoma cells, thus preventing the disease from developing. This still experimental immunotherapeutic strategy paves the way for new treatments against lymphoma. The results can be read in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology.
The potential evolutionary link between hairs in mammals, feathers in birds and scales in reptiles has been debated for decades. Today, researchers of the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland, demonstrate that all these skin appendages are homologous: they share a common ancestry. On the basis of new analyses of embryonic development, the Swiss biologists evidenced molecular and micro-anatomical signatures that are identical between hairs, feathers and scales at their early developmental stages. These new observations, published today in Science Advances, indicate that the three structures evolved from their common reptilian ancestor.
Coronary or peripheral bypasses are the most frequently performed vascular operations. Although one million patients per year and around the world, undergo this intervention, its failure rate reaches 50%, because of poor vessel healing, leading to vessel graft occlusion. To improve the outcome of bypasses, researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) work together with medical doctors from the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV). They developed a gel containing microparticles –‘GeM’, enabling the controlled release of a drug inhibiting cellular over-proliferation. Administered locally, directly on the bypass graft during surgery, this preventive treatment will reduce the risk of obstruction reoccurrence. This research can be read in The Journal of Controlled Release.
The unusual electronic properties of some superconducting materials permit lossless and dense electrical currents at very low temperatures, even in high magnetic fields. Conductors made of these materials are thus ideal for winding coils to generate very high magnetic fields, which are essential for a number of applications like magnetic medical imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy for the analysis of complex molecules or even accelerator magnets. To generate ever-higher magnetic fields, physicists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and an R&D team of Bruker BioSpin in Fällanden (ZH), both in Switzerland, started a collaboration in 2012, which was partially funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Together, they successfully developed and tested the first superconducting coil able to reach a magnetic field of 25 Tesla. A first in Europe.