Structural biology: Molecular scissors caught in the act

Structure of an enzyme crucial for tRNA maturation sheds light on cause of neurodegenerative disorders

17-Jul-2023 - In all living organisms, the biomolecule transfer RNA (tRNA) plays a fundamental role in protein production. tRNAs are generated from precursor molecules in several steps. The enzyme tRNA splicing endonuclease (TSEN), among other things, catalyzes one step in this process. Mutations in TSEN lead ...

How the use of chemicals and biodiversity loss are connected

03-Jul-2023 - Science does not take a deep enough look at chemicals in the environment as one of the causes of the decline in biodiversity. Forty scientists in the RobustNature research network of Goethe University Frankfurt and collaborating institutes have corroborated this in a study that has now been ...

Columbia University’s prestigious Schaefer Award goes to biochemist Robert Tampé of Goethe University

26-Jun-2023 - Biochemist and structural biologist Prof. Robert Tampé of Goethe University Frankfurt has received a research fellowship worth $250,000 (EUR 230,000). He was granted Columbia University’s "Schaefer Scholar Award," bestowed annually on scientists for outstanding academic achievements in human ...

When the cell digests itself: How inherited neurodegenerative diseases develop

Researchers have deciphered how the disturbed recycling chain of the endoplasmic reticulum can cause neurodegenerative diseases

31-May-2023 - Our cells are crisscrossed by a system of membrane tubes and pockets called the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). It is crucial for the production of biomolecules and is continuously built up and degraded. Degradation, known as ER-phagy, is promoted by the protein ubiquitin, which controls many ...

Help for children with peanut allergy

Patches with peanut protein may reduce long-term risk of severe allergic reactions in children under four years of age

30-May-2023 - More and more young children in Western countries suffer from a peanut allergy, also in Germany. At the same time, peanuts or traces of them are present in numerous foods. The strict control of the diet and the constant fear of a so-called anaphylactic shock in case of accidental eating of peanut ...

Known active ingredient as new drug candidate against “monkeypox”

21-Mar-2023 - Mpox – previously known as "monkeypox" – is currently spreading worldwide. An international research team from Goethe University and the University of Kent has now identified a compound that could help fight the disease. Their study has been published in the “Journal of Medical ...

Pioneering method for stem cell diagnostics

Leif S. Ludwig receives Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Early Career Award

25-Jan-2023 - Biochemist and physician Dr Leif S. Ludwig (40) from the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité and the Max Delbrück Center will receive the 2023 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize for Young Researchers, as the Scientific Council of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation announced. Ludwig has ...

Monkeypox viruses remain sensitive to the available drugs

“We were really concerned that the virus could have changed and become resistant to the available therapies”

10-Jan-2023 - The mpox virus is closely related to the smallpox virus (variola virus), which caused large, deadly outbreaks before it was eradicated by vaccination at the end of the 1970s. While the smallpox virus led to very severe disease progression with a death rate of about 30 percent, mpox is milder. ...

Dying cancer cells give neighbouring tumour cells instructions on how to survive

Dangerous communication: Colon cancer cells help each other develop resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs

21-Nov-2022 - Researchers at Georg-Speyer-Haus and Goethe University Frankfurt have discovered a new mechanism that explains why only some of the cells in a colon tumour respond to chemotherapy. The research team led by Professor Florian Greten was able to establish that tumour cells dying off during ...

Metabolite product from pomegranate: Researchers identify way to boost tumour-fighting immune cells

28-Oct-2022 - As part of an interdisciplinary project of the LOEWE Centre Frankfurt Cancer Institute (FCI), researchers from the Georg-Speyer-Haus in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and Goethe University Frankfurt have succeeded in identifying a new approach for the therapy of colorectal cancer. In preclinical ...