Telomeres: Telling Tails
Telomeres protect chromosome ends and help stabilize the genome. Throughout human life and in aging, telomeres often erode down, eventually causing cells to malfunction or die. The highly regulated cellular enzyme telomerase adds telomeric DNA to tel....
More details | Watch nowIon Channels: Their Discovery, their Function and their Role in Diseases
The concept of bioelectricity emerged in the late 18th century, based on the experiments of Galvani and Volta. Sixty years ago, Hodgkin and Huxley showed that the nerve impulse is a result of permeability changes of the nerve membrane. This raised th....
More details | Watch nowThe Origin of Reversible Protein Phosphorylation as a Regulatory Mechanism
Reversible protein phosphorylation can be considered one of the most prevalent mechanism by which eukaryotic cellular events are regulated. It is directly involved in numerous pathological conditions, and bacterial and viral diseases. This process wa....
More details | Watch nowFinding Mutations that Affect Immunity
Beginning with an exception to normal function caused by a genetic aberration, one may hope to find at least one protein with non-redundant function in a certain biological process. This approach permitted the identification of the receptor for bacte....
More details | Watch nowTickling Worms – Surprises from Basic Research
Research, at least my research, has never been linear. I have found that my lab and I often double back on problems after years of inactivity or go off in entirely new directions as dictated by the work and people's interests This lack of direction r....
More details | Watch nowMolecules Against Cancer or for Long-Term Memory Storage
For cancer diagnosis and therapy, we are developing activatable cell penetrating peptides (ACPPs), synthetic molecules with a novel amplifying mechanism for homing to diseased tissues. ACPPs are polycationic cell penetrating peptides whose cellular u....
More details | Watch nowAre We Going to Cure all Diseases and at What Price?
We are exiting the era where our approach to treatment of these and many other diseases is 'one size fits all', and enter a new era of 'personalized medicine' where we shall tailor the treatment according to the patient's molecular/mutational profile....
More details | Watch nowRoles of the Ubiquitin System in Health and Disease
The selective degradation of many short-lived proteins in eukaryotic cells is carried out by the ubiquitin-mediated proteolytic system. In this pathway, proteins are targeted for degradation by covalent ligation to ubiquitin, a highly conserved small....
More details | Watch nowStructural Aspects of Protease Control in Health and Disease
This lecture starts out with a very brief review of the history of protein crystallography and continue with our studies since 1970 on proteolytic enzymes and their control. Proteolytic enzymes catalyse a very simple chemical reaction, the hydrolytic....
More details | Watch nowHelix – Episode 8 – Wilson Disease
This episode outlines details about Wilson disease, a rare disorder involving the amounts of copper in the body, and the negative effects on vision and different organs.
More details | Watch nowThe End of Disease
Helix – Episode 6 – Sickle Cell Disease
In this episode of Helix, Patricia Martin outlines the symptoms and causes of sickle cell disease (also referred to as sickle cell anemia), a hemoglobin-affecting disorder.
More details | Watch nowHarnessing the power of mobile phones and big data for global health
Infectious diseases rank among the gravest threats to human health alongside global warming and terrorism. New strains continue to evolve every year and can spread rapidly. The consequences can be devastating. The 1918 Spanish flu killed an estimated....
More details | Watch nowHIV, a Discovery Highlighting the Global Benefit of Translational Research
The fantastic progress made in medicine led the scientific community to hope about the complete eradication of infectious diseases in the middle of the 20th century. The sudden emergence of AIDS in the early 80's cruelly reminded us that this dream ....
More details | Watch nowProgrammed Cell Death in Development and Disease
Programmed cell death (often referred to as apoptosis) is a normal feature of animal development and tissue homeostasis. The misregulation of cell death has been implicated in a diversity of human disorders, including cancer, autoimmune diseases, he....
More details | Watch nowDNA between Physics and Biology
The association of DNA with water is known since the deciphering of its double helical structure by X-Ray diffraction in 1953 (Watson, Crick, Wilkins and Franklin). However the power of DNA for organizing water seems to go far beyond the direct fill....
More details | Watch nowDiscovery of Nitric Oxide and Cyclic GMP in Cell Signalling and their Role in Drug Development
The role of nitric oxide in cellular signaling in the past three decades has become one of the most rapidly growing areas in biology. Nitric oxide is a gas and a free radical with an unshared electron that can regulate an ever-growing list of biolog....
More details | Watch nowTelomeres and Telomerase in Human Health and Disease
Telomeres are the protective tips that stabilize the ends of chromosomes. The function of telomeres is to allow cells to divide while holding the genetic material intact. Telomeres contain specialized, simple repetitive DNA sequences that, together....
More details | Watch nowThe Optical Frequency Comb – a Really Versatile Tool
The Optical Frequency Comb concept and technology exploded in 1999-2000 from the synthesis of advances in independent fields of Laser Stabilization, UltraFast Lasers, and NonLinear Optical Fibers. The Comb was developed first as a method for optical....
More details | Watch nowGenerating the Fuel of Life
The lecture will be devoted to the topic of how the biological world supplies itself with energy to make biology work, and what medical consequences ensue when the energy supply chain in our bodies is damaged or defective. We derive our energy from ....
More details | Watch nowTickling Worms: Surprises From Basic Research
Research, at least my research, has never been linear. I have found that my lab and I often double back on problems after years of inactivity or go off in entirely new directions as dictated by the work and peoples interests. This lack of direction....
More details | Watch nowDiscovery of Nitric Oxide and Cyclic GMP in Cell Signaling and Their Role in Drug Development
The role of nitric oxide in cellular signaling in the past three decades has become one of the most rapidly growing areas in biology. Nitric oxide is a gas and a free radical with an unshared electron that can regulate an ever-growing list of biolog....
More details | Watch nowStructural Biology and its Translation into Practice and Business: My Experience
As a student in the early 1960s, I had the privilege to attend winter seminars organized by my mentor, W. Hoppe, and by M. Perutz, which took place in a small guesthouse in the Bavarian-Austrian Alps. The entire community of a handful of protein cry....
More details | Watch nowMembrane Proteins: Importance, Functions, Mechanisms
Biological membranes define and compartmentalize the cells of higher organisms. Consisting of membrane proteins and lipids, they are basically impermeable for ions and polar substances, so that electric voltages (_membrane potentialsî) and substanc....
More details | Watch nowMolecules Against Cancer or for Long-Term Memory Storage
For cancer diagnosis and therapy, we are developing activatable cell-penetrating peptides (ACPPs), synthetic molecules with a novel amplifying mechanism for homing to diseased tissues. ACPPs are polycationic cell-penetrating peptides whose cellular ....
More details | Watch nowAquaporin Water Channels _ From Atomic Structure to Malaria
Aquaporin (AQP) water channel proteins enable high water permeability in certain biological membranes. Discovered in human red cells but expressed in multiple tissues, AQP1 has been thoroughly characterized and its atomic structure is known. Expres....
More details | Watch nowThe Revolution of Personalized Medicine: Are We Going to Cure All Diseases and at What Price?
Many important drugs such as penicillin, aspirin, or digitalis, were discovered by serendipity - some by curious researchers who accidentally noted a "strange" phenomenon, and some by isolation of active ingredients form plants known for centuries to....
More details | Watch nowWhy Do We Not Have a Vaccine Against HIV or Tuberculosis?
Analysis of the immune system is fascinating and progressing rapidly. As a field of medical enquiry, it has however, drifted and turned purely academic. This is because interest and appreciation of protective immunity in infectious disease medicine....
More details | Watch nowOn The Road Toward an HIV Cure
Since the first cases of AIDS in 1981 and the identification of its etiological agent in 1983, much progress has been made in both the development of tools to prevent and treat HIV infection and the access to these tools. In particular, the wide arr....
More details | Watch nowForging a Genetic Paradigm for Cancer
It is now axiomatic that, no matter what its causes, cancer ultimately arises from the malfunction of genes. A number of clues prefigured this paradigm: the persistence of the malignant phenotype through countless cell divisions; the mutagenicity of....
More details | Watch nowMan vs. Helicobacter _ The past 50,000 years and the next 50
The epidemiology of Helicobacter pylori continues to be an area of discovery and controversy in the 21st century. The transmission of this bacterium from mother to child allows Helicobacter DNA to mimic the evolution of maternal mitochondria DNA. B....
More details | Watch nowDeciphering Immunity by Making It Fail
Infectious microbes collectively represent the strongest selective pressure operating on our species, and over hundreds of millions of years, drove the evolution of the sophisticated immune system we have today. While the general outlines of immune ....
More details | Watch nowRoles of Protein Degradation in Health and Disease
The selective degradation of many short-lived proteins in eukaryotic cells is carried out by the ubiquitin-mediated proteolytic system. In this pathway, proteins are targeted for degradation by covalent ligation to ubiquitin, a highly conserved sma....
More details | Watch nowDesigning Molecules and Nanoparticles to Help See and Treat Disease
Molecules to observe and manipulate biological systems can be devised by a variety of strategies, ranging from pure chemical design and total synthesis to genome mining and high-throughput directed evolution. Examples of both successes and failures a....
More details | Watch nowAdventures in Nontranslational Research
Professor Martin Chalfie regrets the disproportionately high funding of translational research, defined as applied research for the treatment of human diseases. With examples from the research in his lab he wants to show how important nontranslatio....
More details | Watch nowWhy do we not have a vaccine against TB or HIV (yet)?
Survival of vertebrate hosts against infections depends on important natural or innate resistance mechanisms combined with adaptive immune responses of T and B cells. Infectious agents probe the limit of immune responses and help to characterize thr....
More details | Watch nowNitric oxide as a messenger molecule and its role in drug development
The role of nitric oxide in cellular signaling in the past three decades has become one of the most rapidly growing areas in biology. Nitric oxide is a gas and a free radical with an unshared electron that can regulate an ever-growing list of biolog....
More details | Watch nowWhy Our Proteins Have to Die so We Shall Live
Between the sixties and eighties, most life scientists focused their attention on studies of nucleic acids and the translation of the coded information. Protein degradation was a neglected area, considered to be a non-specific, dead-end process. Whil....
More details | Watch nowPhotosynthesis, Biomass, Biofuels: Conversion Efficiencies and Consequences
It is generally accepted that the global warming, which we undoubtedly observe, is the result of an increased concentration of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. Within this scenario it is evident that we have to re....
More details | Watch nowThe Ubiquitin Proteolytic System as a Novel Drug Development Platform
Between the 50s and 80s, most studies in biomedicine focused on the central dogma - the translation of the information coded by DNA to RNA and proteins. Protein degradation was a neglected area, considered to be a non-specific, dead-end process. ....
More details | Watch nowRoles of the Ubiquitin System in Health and Disease
The selective degradation of many short-lived proteins in eukaryotic cells is carried out by the ubiquitin-mediated proteolytic system. In this pathway, proteins are targeted for degradation by covalent ligation to ubiquitin, a highly conserved sma....
More details | Watch nowEngineering Molecules for Fun, Profit, and Clinical Relevance
Molecules to observe and manipulate biological systems and disease processes can be devised by a variety of strategies, ranging from pure chemical design and total synthesis to genome mining and high-throughput directed evolution. Examples of both ....
More details | Watch nowThe Fuel of Life
The lecture will be devoted to the topic of how the biological world supplies itself with energy to make biology work, and what medical consequences ensue when the energy supply chain in our bodies is damaged or defective. We derive our energy from....
More details | Watch nowG Protein Coupled Receptors: Challenges for Drug Discovery
G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) conduct the majority of cellular responses to hormones and neurotransmitters, and are therefore the largest group of pharmaceutical targets for a broad spectrum of diseases. Identification of genes for GPCRs, ini....
More details | Watch nowDrug Development in the 21st Century – Are We Going to Cure All Diseases?
Many important drugs such as penicillin, aspirin, or digitalis, were discovered by serendipity - some by curious researchers who accidentally noted a "strange" phenomenon, and some by isolation of active ingredients form plants known for centuries to....
More details | Watch nowTickling Worms: Surprises From Basic Research
Research, at least my research, has never been linear. I have found that my lab and I often double back on problems after years of inactivity or go off in entirely new directions as dictated by the work and people's interests. This lack of direct....
More details | Watch nowProteases and Their Control in Health and Disease
Proteolytic enzymes catalyse a very simple chemical reaction, the hydrolytic cleavage of a peptide bond. Nevertheless, they constitute a most diverse and numerous lineage of proteins. The reason lies in their role as components of many regulatory....
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