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Life Sciences - Computer Science - 10.05.2021

Reaching your life goals as a single-celled organism
How do simple creatures manage to move to a specific place? Artificial intelligence and a physical model from TU Wien can now explain this. How is it possible to move in the desired direction without a brain or nervous system? Single-celled organisms apparently manage this feat without any problems: for example, they can swim towards food with the help of small flagellar tails.

Life Sciences - Chemistry - 05.05.2021

Tracking down the tiniest of forces: how T cells detect invaders
T cells use their antigen receptors like sticky fingers - a team from TU Wien and MedUni Vienna was able to observe them doing so. T-cells play a central role in our immune system: by means of their so-called T-cell receptors (TCR) they make out dangerous invaders or cancer cells in the body and then trigger an immune reaction.

Life Sciences - Environment - 14.04.2021

Of Apples and Oil Pumpkins: News from Microbiome Research
The extent to which the composition of the microbiome of apples and oil pumpkins depends on the geographical location and what insights can be derived from this for breeding, health and shelf life of the fruits is shown in two recent publications by researchers at TU Graz. Additional pictures for download at the end in the text We refer to the microbiome as the community of microorganisms that exist in or on all organisms, including bacteria and fungi.

Life Sciences - Health - 09.04.2021

Popeye with a whiff of rotten eggs
A sulfosugar from green vegetables promotes the growth of important gut bacteria An international team of scientists led by microbiologists Alexander Loy from the University of Vienna and David Schleheck from the University of Konstanz has uncovered new metabolic capabilities of gut bacteria. For the first time, the researchers have analyzed how microbes in the gut process the plant-based, sulfur-containing sugar sulfoquinovose.

Computer Science - Life Sciences - 11.03.2021

New Approach Found for Energy-Efficient AI Applications
Researchers at TU Graz demonstrate a new design method for particularly energy-saving artificial neural networks that get by with extremely few signals and - similar to Morse code - also assign meaning to the pauses between the signals. Most new achievements in artificial intelligence (AI) require very large neural networks.

Health - Life Sciences - 05.03.2021

Promising metallodrug candidate for tumour therapy
BOLD-100/KP1339 is a ruthenium-based anticancer agent that has been decisively co-developed at the University of Vienna and which has shown promising results in clinical trials in cancer patients. However, the mode of action of this metal compound has not yet been fully elucidated. Researchers from the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna have now been able to demonstrate that BOLD-100 binds to ribosomal proteins in tumour cells.

Physics - Life Sciences - 04.03.2021

New EU project ’ONEM’ develops a unique hybrid imaging technique
The ONEM project will develop a new non-invasive microscopy technique for imaging dynamic processes at interfaces, called Optical Near-field Electron Microscopy. Led by physicist Thomas Juffmann from the University of Vienna, ONEM - which has a budget of 3,7 million Euro - is one of only two proposals that succeeded in the topic "Measuring the Unmeasurable" of the call from the European Innovation Council.

Life Sciences - Physics - 26.02.2021

05.03.: Gastvortrag: Swarming Behaviour in Confinement - How curved surfaces influence pattern formation in biology
Am 05. März 2021 hält Univ. Prof. John W. C. Dunlop einen Vortrag zum Thema "Swarming Behaviour in Confinement - How curved surfaces influence pattern formation in biology." Der Vortrag findet um 14 Uhr online via Webex statt. Der Fachbereich Biowissenschaften lädt herzlich dazu ein! Univ.

Life Sciences - Environment - 23.02.2021

Mutable: Graz Researchers Decode Genome of Two Cichlid Species
Nature and man must constantly adapt to new living conditions. A research team from Graz has investigated how this is done and which genes play an important role in this process using the model system of the Great Lakes of East Africa. Global warming, environmental change, dried up food sources: nature and man must constantly adapt to new living conditions.

Social Sciences - Life Sciences - 08.02.2021

Marmoset monkeys have personalities too
In humans, differences in personalities have been evident since the ancient times. Personality in animals has long been ignored, but recently this question has received increasing research interest as it has been realized that personality has evolutionary and ecological significance. An international team of behavioral biologists from Austria, Brazil and the Netherlands, with Vedrana Šlipogor from the University of Vienna as leading author of the study, designed a set of tasks to assess personality of common marmosets.

Life Sciences - Materials Science - 01.02.2021

Origami with DNA
A team at TU Wien was able to answer important questions about the immune system - with a trick reminiscent of paper folding. T-cells are an important component of our immune system: with the receptors they carry on their surface, they can recognise highly specific antigens. Upon detection of an intruder, an immune response is triggered.

Paleontology - Life Sciences - 14.01.2021

Spectacular fossil discovery: 150 million-year-old shark was one of the largest of its time
In a new study, an international research team led by Sebastian Stumpf from the University of Vienna describes an exceptionally well-preserved skeleton of the ancient shark Asteracanthus. This extremely rare fossil find comes from the famous Solnhofen limestones in Bavaria, which was formed in a tropical-subtropical lagoon landscape during the Late Jurassic, about 150 million years ago.

Life Sciences - Health - 11.01.2021

Resistant rice plants: TU Graz identifies bacterium that protects rice plants against diseases
With their expertise in microbiome research, the researchers at the Institute of Environmental Biotechnology were able to demonstrate how a specific bacterium inside the seeds of rice plants effectively and in an eco-friendly way inhibits destructive plant pathogens. Rice is the staple food of about half the world's population.

Life Sciences - Environment - 11.01.2021

More than just a sun tan: ultraviolet light helps marine animals to tell the time of year
Changes in daylength are a well-established annual timing cue for animal behavior and physiology. An international collaboration of scientists led by Kristin Tessmar-Raible at the Max Perutz Labs, a joint venture of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, now shows that, in addition to daylength, marine bristle worms sense seasonal intensity changes of UVA/deep violet light to adjust the levels of important neurohormones and their behavior.

Life Sciences - 07.01.2021

Unusual sex chromosomes of platypus, emu and duck
Three papers unveil the extraordinary diversity of animal sex chromosomes The sex chromosomes genetically define the developmental fate of an embryo to become a male or a female individual, and usually appear as one pair of morphologically different chromosomes between sexes. For example, women have one pair of XX chromosomes, while men have one pair of XY chromosomes.

Life Sciences - History / Archeology - 23.12.2020

Ancient DNA shines light on Caribbean prehistory
An international team of scientists reveals the genetic makeup of the people who lived in the Caribbean between about 400 and 3,100 years ago-at once settling several archaeologic and anthropologic debates, illuminating present-day ancestries and reaching startling conclusions about Indigenous population sizes when Caribbean cultures were devastated by European colonialism beginning in the 1490s.

Life Sciences - Pharmacology - 14.12.2020

RNA basic building block produced biocatalytically for the first time
Researchers from TU Graz and acib succeed in the first enzyme-driven biocatalytic synthesis of nucleic acid building blocks. This facilitates the development of antiviral agents and RNA-based therapeutics. Due to the COVID 19 pandemic and the associated intensive search for therapeutics and vaccines, the chemical substance class of nucleosides is experiencing an enormous increase in interest.

Health - Life Sciences - 05.11.2020

Graz researchers identify biomarker for cardiovascular diseases
The role of the enzyme dipeptidyl peptidase 3 in the blood pressure-regulating renin-angiotensin system was investigated in the inter-university cooperation project BioTechMed-Graz. The results could pave the way for new therapies for cardio-renal diseases. The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) becomes active at low blood pressure and forms angiotensin II, a hormone that causes blood vessels to constrict, causing blood pressure to rise again.

Life Sciences - Chemistry - 04.11.2020

Microbial space travel on a molecular scale
How extremophilic bacteria survive in space for one year Galactic cosmic and solar UV radiation, extreme vacuum, temperature fluctuations: how can microbes exposed to these challenges in space survive? An international team around Space Biochemistry group at the University of Vienna investigated how the space-surviving microbes could physically survive the transfer from one celestial body to another.

Health - Life Sciences - 27.10.2020

New cancer diagnostics: A glimpse into the tumor in 3D
In order to analyze tumors, they have to be cut into thin slices. Now, a new technology has been developed that makes pieces of the tumor visible in 3D without cutting them. After cancer surgery, the crucial question is: Are there possibly cancer cells left behind that can continue to grow, or has the entire tumor actually been removed? To find out, the tumor is examined by pathologists.