Switzerland
I am a science journalist with EPFL in Switzerland, covering research in physics, chemistry, and the life sciences.
I'm also a cartoonist. I draw The Upturned Microscope, a webcomic about lab culture and science.
RNA sequencing allows scientists to study the expression of genes in a cell. Since messenger RNA (mRNA) is generated from a DNA gene, that information can be used to identify the original gene sequence and thus measure the activity of thousands of genes (i.e. the transcriptome) in these cells.
Even though we don't think about it, every movement we make in our daily life essentially consists of a sequence of smaller actions in a specific order. The only time we realize this is when we have to learn a new motor skill, like a sport, a musical instrument, a new dance routine or even a new electronic device such as a smart phone or videogame controller.
When pharmaceutical companies begin looking for a drug candidate, they use a filtering process known as "high-throughput screening". Here, large numbers of different chemical compounds are tested to see which will bind to a protein that is the target of the disease they want to address.
EPFL scientists have developed a new, PET-like plastic that is easily made from the non-edible parts of plants. The plastic is tough, heat-resistant, and a good barrier to gases like oxygen, making it a promising candidate for food packaging. Due to its structure, the new plastic can also be chemically recycled and degrade back to harmless sugars in the environment.
“Breast cancer affects 1 in 7 women,” says Professor Cathrin Brisken at EPFL’s School of Life Sciences. “More than two thirds of the cases are hormone-sensitive and express the receptor for estrogen in more than 1% of the tumor cells.” In fact, biological signaling by the estrogen receptor is a key driver of breast carcinogenesis and blocking it is a standard pursuit of hormone therapies, which have substantially improved survival rates of patients.
In January 2021, Professor Andy Oates took up the position of Dean at EPFL’s School of Life Sciences. Six months later, we caught up with him to chat about his new role, its challenges, and his overall vision for the School.
Need a new liver or retina? Stem cells could regrow a damaged organ, given that we get enough of them. EPFL researchers have discovered how to mass produce them by squeezing normal cells. This amazing transformation process has been described in a 2016 Nature Materials article.
Even today, clean water is a privilege for many people across the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least 1.8 billion people consume water contaminated with feces, and by 2040, a large portion of the world will endure water stress because of insufficient resources of drinking water.
As we age, so do our eyes; most commonly, this involves changes to our vision and new glasses, but there are more severe forms of age-related eye problems. One of these is age-related macular degeneration, which affects the macula - the back part of the eye that gives us sharp vision and the ability to distinguish details.
“We used two kinds of data to build NeuroMechFly,” says Professor Pavan Ramdya at EPFL’s School of Life Sciences. “First, we took a real fly and performed a CT scan to build a morphologically realistic biomechanical model. The second source of data were the real limb movements of the fly, obtained using pose estimation software that we've developed in the last couple of years that allow us to precisely track the movements of the animal.”
Fusion is one of the most promising sources of future energy. It involves two atomic nuclei combining into one, thereby releasing enormous amounts of energy. In fact, we experience fusion every day: the Sun’s warmth comes from hydrogen nuclei fusing into heavier helium atoms. There is currently an international fusion research megaproject called ITER, which aims to replicate the fusion processes of the Sun to create energy on the Earth. Its aim is the creation of high temperature plasma...
The ability to capture the behavior of animals is critical for neuroscience, ecology, and many other fields. Cameras are ideal for capturing fine-grained behavior, but developing computer vision techniques to extract the animal's behavior is challenging even though this seems effortless for our own visual system.
Perovskites are hybrid materials made from metal halides and organic compounds. They have attracted a lot of interest in the field of solar energy because of their light-harvesting capacities combined with a low cost of manufacturing, making them prime candidates for overtake the market from their silicon counterparts.
Cells go through a life cycle that includes growing to the right size, being equipped to perform its functions, and finally dividing into two new cells. The cell cycle is critical because it ensures the perpetuation of the cell population and by extension of the greater structure they are a part of - for example a tissue in the body.