When influenza viruses enter our body, the immune system recognises them as being foreign by means of various receptors and starts a defence programme.Scientists of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and of the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg recently studied the detailed role of a certain receptor in this first line of defence. They discovered that the receptor activates natural killer cells, which use messenger substances to activate other immune cells and then eliminate body cells that are infected by viruses.

Dr. Thomas Schinecker talks about demographic change, health policy and how increasing complexity can be managed for the benefit of patients, physicians, laboratories and the health care system. The interview was conducted by Dr. Ilka Ottleben from the LP editorial team.

Much better treatment options now exist for many illnesses compared to what was available ten years ago. Their effectiveness depends, however, on early detection. Laboratory diagnostics create a highly dynamic bond between scientific progress and medical applications.

Japanese scientists successfully used a new cell culture platform to observe never-before-seen behaviors of live cancer cells under the microscope, leading to explanations of long-known cancer characteristics.

Thermo Fisher Scientific and Symphogen, a clinical-stage antibody oncology-focused company, have entered into a two-year collaborative partnership to deliver validated, platform workflows for simplified characterization and quality monitoring of complex therapeutic proteins.

The first order of a 18 Tesla ultra-high field magnetic resonance imaging system, a new FTIR series and a special IR solution for the dairy industry: These are just some of the few products and informations, Bruker announced at tihs year's Pittcon.

Researchers led by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) report on the synthesis of a library of more than 330,000 reference peptides representing essentially all canonical proteins of the human proteome. This research is a major milestone in the ProteomeTools project which aims at translating human proteome information into new molecular and digital tools with the potential for use in drug discovery, personalized medicine and life science research.

Microorganisms often assemble natural products similar to industrial assembly lines. Certain enzymes, non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS) play a key role in this process. Biotechnologists at Goethe University have now been able to discover how these enzymes interact with each other. This brings them one step closer to their goal of engineering the production of such peptide natural products.

Miltenyi Biotec has signed a purchase contract for a non-harmful, fluorescence-preserving, optical clearing process from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. The acquired invention involves an easy-to-use protocol that allows a safe optical clearing of biological samples for microscopy using an organic solvent-based clearing agent, the company announced.

An international research led by the UGR shows that 90 % of store and supermarket receipts are made of thermal paper containing bisphenol A (BPA). BPA is a well‑known endocrine disruptor that alters hormonal balance in people exposed to it, and it leads to hormonal diseases such as genitourinary malformations, infertility, obesity and cancer in hormone‑dependent organs.