Swimming behavior of sperm: plasticizers temporarily alter motility

25-Jan-2024 - In Germany, involuntary childlessness affects around a third of all couples between the ages of 25 and 50. In another third of cases, the causes are not known. In male fertility disorders in particular, the focus is always on so-called plasticizers, which are found in many everyday objects such ...

Visibly more movement: researchers develop new microscope for immune cells

High-throughput analysis of drug substances: 60 times faster than conventional microscopes

13-Dec-2023 - Immune cells fight infectious agents, for example, or search for developing cancers. To do this, they constantly migrate through the tissues of our body. In the wrong place, however, immune cells such as neutrophil granulocytes can also cause damage: If these white blood cells infiltrate tumors, ...

Online Microscopy Platform: See-through for Everyone!

One can focus through the high-resolution specimens just like on a microscope, in order to see details in sharp focus that are located in different layers

12-May-2023 - Fix the slide, adjust, start with the lowest magnification and then focus through the specimen: This routine is particularly familiar to biology students from microscopy classes. Now, the process also works digitally. More than 200 specimens of plants, animals and microorganisms can be viewed in ...

Protein could help in early detection of malignant Hodgkin's lymphoma

04-Aug-2022 - Hodgkin's lymphoma is one of the most common forms of lymphatic cancer and is most common in young adults. How this malignant disease of the lymphatic system occurs has not yet been fully clarified. Scientists at the Medical Faculty of the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), together with ...

Catabolic Processes in Cells: Controlling the Danger Within

How cells protect themselves from their defective trash cans

08-Jul-2022 - Trillions of cells in our body work non-stop to keep us alive. This generates waste that is decomposed in specialized cellular organs. But what happens if the cellular trash cans don't work? Researchers assume that this is the cause of numerous diseases. Biologists at the University of ...

Microbes and viruses – a threat to Mars?

„We found very specific microbes called Archaea to dominate the driest parts of the Atacama – which goes beyond our current knowledge“

03-Dec-2021 - Viruses are survivors! Desert heat and desiccation can’t harm some of them. „We find viruses and microbes in the driest and most radiation-intensive, non-polar region on Earth, which is really amazing,“ says Prof. Dr. Alexander J. Probst from the Environmental Biology and Biotechnology Department ...

Food chain in the dark

03-Aug-2021 - The discovery is groundbreaking: previously unknown viruses live in the subsoil of our planet, they infect unicellular microorganisms, the so-called Altiarchaea. The remarkable thing is that they start the food chain in an ecosystem that is actually hidden from our eyes. An international team led ...

Artificial intelligence: Swarm learning decodes biomolecules

28-Jul-2021 - They are often referred to as the "building blocks of life": Biomolecules. To understand and use their function in the body, one must know their structure. A complex and sometimes imprecise matter. This is where the new method developed at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) together with ...

Switching Off the "Survival Protein" for Cancer Cells

Customized molecules block pivotal site of the protein

11-Mar-2021 - It is called the "survival protein" because it plays a central role in the growth of cancer cells: survivin influences two important processes in the body's cells at the same time – cell death and cell division. Chemists and biologists at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) have now succeeded ...

More Education May not Protect Against Dementia

30-Nov-2020 - The state of knowledge seemed clear: school education protects against dementia. Every school year is supposed to reduce the risk of developing dementia in later life by up to seven percent. Researchers at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) have shown quite some perseverance and have now ...