Thursday, 03 May 2012

IMI project IMIDIA secures additional funding from major US diabetes research charity

Brussels, New York, Frankfurt, Lausanne, Paris, 3rd May 2012 The European Union’s Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is proud to announce that scientists in its successful diabetes project, IMIDIA, will receive additional support of up to $1 million (approx. € 750 000) in milestone-based funding from JDRF. JDRF is the world’s largest supporter of research to cure, treat, and prevent type 1 diabetes (T1D). The additional support allows IMIDIA participants to expand their research effo... More

Tuesday, 01 May 2012

Protein Spotlight Update: kiss of life

We all take Spring for granted. The moment the first bouts of warmth hit the air, we fully expect to see the lawn duly mottled with daisies, leaves pushing their way into the nascent season and flowers blossoming wherever we care to look. And quite rightly so. We all know it’s going to happen since it does every year. And we do realise that Nature needs to renew itself every once in a while. The process is – you could say – automatic. But it is only automatic because there are hordes of... More

Thursday, 12 April 2012

Publication of the SIB Annual Report 2011

12.04.12It is boom time for bioinformatics. Barely known about a decade ago, this discipline has become the backbone of life science research. Researchers more than ever before need bioinformatics expertise and support. Why? Because they produce increasing amounts of data and need accurate expertise and appropriate tools and resources to store, annotate, analyse, interpret and share their information. This explains why more and more research groups ask to join our institute. Our institute, wh... More

Thursday, 12 April 2012

Discreteness-induced concentration inversion in mesoscopic chemical systems

April 10, 2012 Today, Nature Communications, a high-profile journal of the Nature Publishing Group (NPG), publishes the article “Discreteness-induced concentration inversion in mesoscopic chemical systems”, co-authored by Rajesh Ramaswamy, Nélido González-Segredo, Ivo F. Sbalzarini, all from the MOSAIC Group from ETHZ and SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, and Ramon Grima from the University of Edinburgh.More More

Wednesday, 04 April 2012

Nicolas Salamin nomination as Assistant Professor

Congratulations to Nicolas Salamin, Computational Phylogenetics Group, who was nominated Assistant Professor at the University of Lausanne in the beginning of April. We wish him a lot of success with this new position!More More

Wednesday, 28 March 2012

New resource opens the door for enzyme research

Hinxton, 28 March 2012Like people bustling around busy cities, the thousands of molecules inside our cells are constantly interacting with each other: turning each other on or off, working together, splitting up and networking. Understanding the countless ways in which they do so is a major challenge in biology, but it is fundamental to understanding life. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and colleagues in the Internation... More

Monday, 26 March 2012

Test for single genetic fault can help tailor cancer treatment for children

A study led by Dr Janet Shipley from The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in Londonin collaboration with Dr Mauro Delorenzi from the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformaticsin Lausanne has shown that a simple genetic test could help predict theaggressiveness of rhabdomyosarcoma tumours in children. The test, which should beintroduced into clinical practice, would lead to changes in treatment for many patients,allowing some children to escape potentially long-term side-effects whilst giving oth... More

Friday, 23 March 2012

Identification of a poor-prognosis BRAF-mutant-like population of patients with colon cancer

March 2012A study directed by Mauro Delorenzi, Leader of SIB’s Bioinformatics Core Facility Group shows that a current gene mutation classification is far from adequate in diagnosing colorectal cancer. The results of the study were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.Mutations in two oncogenic genes– KRAS and BRAF – are increasingly used in routine clinical practice to decide which treatment to give to patients with colorectal cancer. However, recent data have clearly shown to... More

Monday, 19 March 2012

Protein Spotlight Update: the ends of our fingers

Fingertips are hugely sensitive. And, besides the fairly recent mobile phones that rely on them entirely, we put their sensitivity to use constantly. They are able to grasp subtle differences in temperature and texture – such as discern warm from tepid for example, or a dry surface from a greasy one. They are also able to touch or feel extremely delicately. In truth, the ends of our fingers are able to give a pretty clear picture of what is happening around us. This, of course, is thanks to... More

Friday, 10 February 2012

Announcing the SIB 2012 Awards

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics is happy to announce the SIB 2012 Awards, two prizes assigned to young scientists in bioinformatics. These awards consist of two categories – the SIB Young Bioinformatician Award and the SIB Best Graduate Paper. More More

Thursday, 09 February 2012

Protein Spotlight Update: get a grip

Someone once told me that they had spread grease all over the drainpipe that crawled up the front of their house, to prevent cats from climbing up it. It’s a very simple and pretty harmless way of keeping the enemy away. It’s hardly surprising, then, that Nature thought up just the same trick millions of years ago. Many higher plants’ stems – and also sometimes their leaves – are covered with a whitish surface, which is slightly greasy to the touch. Botanists have known for a long t... More

Tuesday, 10 January 2012

Protein Spotlight Update: zips, necklaces and mobile telephones

I would hate to leave the house without the odd necklace hanging round my neck. But I happen to be fortunate. Millions of other people are not. That is because a lot of jewellery contains the silvery-white metal known as nickel, which can cause disagreeable skin conditions. If nickel were confined to jewellery, things would not be so bad but it is also frequently found in zips, coins and mobile telephones for instance. And who, in our society, can easily dispense with any one of these items? ... More

Friday, 06 January 2012

New gene mutations involved in the melanoma

Researchers from the University of Geneva, the LICR@UNIL, the CHUV and the SIB discovered new mutations of the genes MEK1 and MEK2, which are involved in the development of the melanoma.This discovery, which opens new perspectives to personalized treatment, was pusblished in Nature Genetics.The melanoma is one of the most agressive forms of skin cancers. Resistant to usual chemotherapy treatments, it involves a high mortality rate. In Switzerland, the melanoma represents about 5% of newly dia... More