Health Sciences

Researchers at ETH Zurich and the University of Basel have developed a vaccine that protects animals from Salmonella. These bacteria often escape the effects of vaccination by genetically modifying their protective coat. The researchers have succeeded in manipulating this process to lure the bacteria into an evolutionary trap.

Researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich deciphered the cellular mechanisms through which tendons can adapt to mechanical stresses. People who carry a certain variant of a gene that is key to this mechanism show improved jumping performance.

Older traumatic experiences are harder to get over compared to recent ones, and EPFL scientists have started to understand why – at the level of brain circuits. The results point the way for treating long-term trauma.

ETH Fellow Rodrigo Arzate-Mejia is studying how traumatic life experiences affect the brain, with a focus on epigenetic changes in brain cells.  

Through a unique combination of computer simulations and laboratory experiments, researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have discovered new binding sites for active agents – against cancer, for example – on a vital protein of the cell cytoskeleton. Eleven of the sites hadn’t been known before. The study is published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.