In a recent study published in Cell Reports, a research team led by Colin Adrain, from the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC, Portugal), discovered the mechanism that controls the release of important molecules that trigger the inflammatory response during the clearance of infections. When this machinery is deregulated it can contribute to important chronic diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, and cancer. Most proteins involved in communication between cells reside on the cell surface, hooked to the membrane. This is the case for the inflammatory molecule, TNF.  When TNF is released from the membrane, it binds to its receptor on the cell surface, activating a cascade of events that change the cell’s behaviour fundamentally, preparing the cell and surrounding tissue to fight infection. However, TNF is deregulated in a range of inflammatory diseases and is therefore the focus of several therapeutic strategies.

Stem cell therapy has great potential for curing cartilage damage. However, it has remained unclear whether stem cells are responsible for regeneration or whether they trigger the process. Researchers at the Vetmeduni Vienna have been able to resolve this issue by tracking the effects in a new, natural model. After injection, stem cells orchestrate the healing effect of endogenous cells but are not responsible for cartilage regeneration. The breakthrough is published in JCI-Insight and was enabled by preventing the normal immune response to the molecule required to trace the injected cells.

Therapy with mesenchymal stem cells, the so-called progenitor cells of connective tissue, holds great promise for the regeneration of cartilage tissue but how stem cell therapy contributes to the healing of damaged connective tissue has been unclear. Debate has centred on whether the injected cells promote regeneration or stimulate the body's own cells to proliferate. A new strategy has now enabled researchers from the Department of Biomedical Sciences of the Vetmeduni Vienna to solve the question. The problem was that a marker protein was recognized by the immune system of the recipient as a non-self protein, leading to the rejection of the injected stem cells. The Vetmeduni Vienna scientists were able to overcome this limitation and show that progenitor cells do not participate directly in cartilage regeneration but serve to "animate" the process.

Newborns with jaundice must lie alone, naked, and with their eyes covered in incubators under blue light. Empa's light pajamas revolutionize this treatment because the pajamas emit the light directly onto the baby's skin. That means the baby can get healthy while warm, snug, and without a blindfold in its mother's arms.

Alone, naked, and with their eyes covered for protection: this is how newborns lie in incubators when they are being treated for jaundice. Irradiation with blue light in an incubator is necessary because toxic decomposition products of the blood pigment hemoglobin are deposited in the skin in newborns with jaundice. Researchers of the Empa division Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles have now significantly improved the not-so-child-friendly procedure by combining the treatment with the needs of the newborns: The team, led by Luciano Boesel, developed illuminated pajamas for babies that turn the treatment into a wellness experience.

To do this, the material researchers created textiles with optically conductive fibers woven into them. Battery-operated LEDs serve as a light source for the light-conducting threads. Together with conventional thread, the optical fibers are woven into a satin material that distributes the light supply evenly throughout the fabric, as the researchers recently reported in the trade journal "Biomedical Optics Express". 

Asian elephant populations in Laos, which are under a process of commodification, have dropped by half in the last 30 years. According to researchers1 from CNRS and the French Beauval Nature association for conservation and research, the dynamics of elephant populations depend heavily on the socio-economic practices of the country and elephant owners. The setting-up of a “maternity-leave” system to compensate owners for their losses of income during breeding period would contribute to the species’ long-term survival. The findings of this research are published in Scientific Reports on November 1st 2017. Since the opening of the country to the market economy 20 years ago, the intensification of elephants’ workload, notably for the timber industry, has heavily affected their reproduction. The elephant’s long gestation period (22 months), followed by 2 years weaning, makes reproduction incompatible with work. In addition, the exportation of Lao elephants to neighboring countries for tourism purposes threatens the population survival.

It is possible to produce bioethanol from agricultural and industrial waste in existing plants in a socioeconomically sustainable way. A research project has been carried out by doctoral student Ramkumar Nair at the University of Borås, Sweden, where he verified a new process model. “I have been verifying a process that we hope will work in an industrial scale, when it comes to using existing ethanol factories”, he says. “Thanks to that process, the industry can become more sustainable and use agricultural or industrial waste for the production of bioethanol.” Bioethanol is used for fuel for ethanol cars, among other things. Usually, wheat, sugar canes, or corn are used for ethanol production. In Sweden, wheat is the most common.

Every year there are around 400 new cases of cervical cancer and a total of approximately 800 cancers associated with HPV (human papilloma virus). Two measures could reverse this trend: the nonavalent HPV vaccination co-developed at MedUni Vienna's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology under the supervision of Elmar Joura and HPV screening by means of smear tests as secondary prevention. This combination is able to reduce the cancer risk by more than 90%. This point was emphasised by Joura in advance of the European Gynaecological Oncology Congress (ESGO), which is being held in the Austria Center Vienna from 4 – 7 November, under the aegis of MedUni Vienna. In future, the HPV test should and will replace cell smear testing (cytology) as a primary screening method, says the HPV expert, who also works in the Comprehensive Cancer Center Vienna (CCC). The advantage of the test, which works just like a smear test but is evaluated in a different way, is: "It is more sensitive and does not miss as many precancerous cells." With the conventional smear test there is a risk – still standing at 50% – that precancerous cells will not be detected. 

The family relationship between film characters clearly affects the reactions in the viewers' brain. The study has also detected a significant conflict between the reactions of the brain and the person's own account. Are we more prone to help the person that resembles us the most? Social neuroscientists have studied the effects of similarity by showing a re-edited version of the film My Sister’s Keeper to a group of subjects and by giving them a moral dilemma to consider while measuring their brain function by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging. The subjects comprised 30 women who were shown a version of the film shortened to 25 minutes and asked to observe the film in the light of different questions. The study focused particularly on how the subjects felt about one sister refusing to donate an organ to another sister diagnosed with cancer. Before starting the film, the researchers told the subjects that the sisters were either biological siblings or that the younger sister had been adopted to the family as a baby.

 Prof. Dr. Irmgard Förster (right) and Prof. Dr. Günter Mayer (left) with their team. Photo: Volker Lannert/Uni Bonn

Researchers from the University of Bonn have isolated a molecule that is suitable for the control of contact allergies. The study illuminates a central immune mechanism, which may also play a role in other inflammatory diseases such as arthritis or arteriosclerosis. The results will soon be published in the journal Molecular Therapy, but are already available online. The newly discovered substance is a so-called RNA aptamer. Aptamers are molecules that are related to DNA, the carrier of the genetic information in our cells. They can specifically bind to unique target structures of proteins and thereby block them. "Our aptamer interferes with the communication between two important types of immune cells - T cells and dendritic cells," says Prof. Dr. Irmgard Förster, who heads the department of "Immunology and Environment" at the LIMES Institute of the University of Bonn. She is also a member of the Excellence Cluster "ImmunoSensation", a major center of immunological research in Germany.

 Figure: Strata of the Chinle Formation below the prominent silcrete horizon exposed in the Petrified Forest National Park. Photo courtesy of Andrew V. Kearns, 2012.

The Norian Chinle Formation in the Southwestern United States provides a snapshot into an ancient terrestrial ecosystem with its famous petrified tree trunks and various plant and vertebrate remains. The fossil plant assemblages, including spores and pollen grains, provide useful information on past vegetation and the response of the vegetation to climate changes. New pollen and spore data from the Chinle Formation at the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, suggest that a extinction of plants occurred between 213 and 217 million years ago in tandem with an extinction of several reptile groups. The predominance of plants adapted to drier conditions after the extinction event is consistent with the gradual aridification of the North American continent due to the uplift of the Cordilleran volcanic mountain range and the probable northward shift of North America through plate tectonics. Plant community analysis reveals that the floral turnover was followed by the colonization of new plant groups such as the varieties of conifer trees and the decrease in the contribution of seed ferns in the vegetation along waterways.