Life sciences company Eppendorf is presenting its research prize for the 26th time. The independent Award Jury chaired by Prof. Reinhard Jahn announced Dr. Tanmay Bharat, Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom as the winner of the Eppendorf Award for European Investigators 2021.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Computational Biology Department in the School of Computer Science have developed a new process that could reinvigorate the search for natural product drugs to treat cancers, viral infections and other ailments.

Being able to detect an infection with SARS-CoV-2 and to distinguish its variants can be decisive for gauging the spread of disease and selecting the right therapy. Researchers from Würzburg at the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) tackle this challenge with a new CRISPR discovery they translated into a diagnostic platform called Leopard.

Researchers at Mainz University developed a new procedure for the quick, cost-effective, and environmentally-friendly production of essential substances required by the pharmaceutical industry.

A study from the Center for Phage Technology, part of Texas A&M’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Texas A&M Agri Life Research, shows how the “hidden” genes in bacteriophages — types of viruses that infect and destroy bacteria — may be key to the development of a new class of antibiotics for human health.

On January 1, 2021, the new Emmy Noether Group “Next Generation Antimicrobial Polymers” started its work at the University of Potsdam in close cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP. The goal is to develop antimicrobial polymers that can replace antibiotics.

The Universitat Jaume I (UJI) has found biomolecules of plant origin and it has been tested against plant pathogens as well as pathogens of clinical interest in order to obtain high-quality commercial products for the agricultural and pharmaceutical industry.

Novartis has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to conduct a large Phase III clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine in hospitalised patients with the Covid-19 disease in the United States. The trial aims to speed up the process in order to determine if hydroxychloroquine will be beneficial for patients with this disease.

Porphyromonas gingivalis is a major bacterial pathogen which leads to periodontitis, also known as gum disease. What’s more, P. gingivalis has also been linked to rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, pancreatic cancer, and even Alzheimer’s disease. A research has provided new insights into bacteriology and is a crucial step towards combating the diseases this bacterium is associated with.

Graphite nanoplatelets integrated into plastic medical surfaces can prevent infections, killing 99.99 % of bacteria which try to attach – a cheap and viable potential solution to a problem which affects millions, costs huge amounts of time and money, and accelerates antibiotic resistance. This is according to research from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, in the journal Small.