ScienceTuberculosis - an old pandemic has made a forceful comebackInterview with Ulrich Schaible, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK A third of the world’s population is estimated to be infected with the tuberculosis bacterium. Of these, 5–10% develop active disease and become infectious, with multi- and extensive-drug-resistant bacterial strains now being a serious problem. Schaible describes the complex interplay between the intracellular tuberculosis bacterium and its human host, as well as current problems and new approaches for vaccination. Citation: (2008). Tuberculosis - an old pandemic has made a forceful comeback. Interview with U. Schaible. B.I.F. FUTURA 23(1), 15-18 Copyright: © Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities”, which permits free, irrevocable and universal right on access to these contributions and allow the work to be used, reproduced, or disseminated in digital form, provided the original author, copyright holder and source are credited.  Download PDF of the article (60 KB)
Reviews
Trends in biological optical microscopy. The 96th International Titisee ConferenceSören Doose, Applied Laser Physics and Laser Spectroscopy, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany Modern light microscopy techniques allow unprecedented insight into biological structures and processes with regard to resolution, sensitivity, specificity, speed of image acquisition and field of view. They can, for example, measure conformational changes of proteins or the movement of single motor proteins. Doose’s report gives an overview of the latest developments in the field of optical microscopy and their biological applications. Citation: (2008). Trends in biological optical microscopy. The 96th International Titisee Conference. B.I.F. FUTURA 23(1), 5-14 Copyright: © Sören Doose. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities”, which permits free, irrevocable and universal right on access to these contributions and allow the work to be used, reproduced, or disseminated in digital form, provided the original author, copyright holder and source are credited. Download PDF of the article (276 KB)
Research Articles of B.I.F. Fellows (Results)In these final accounts, B.I.F. fellowship holders present a brief summary of the research results and publications of their PhD project. T-channel expression, IT and burst firing in the thalamusTilman Broicher Department of Neurophysiology, Institute of Physiology I, Medical Faculty, University of Münster, Münster, Germany Cardiac pacemaker function of HCN4 channels in miceDagmar Harzheim Section Cellular Signal Processing (INB-1), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany Parkinson’s disease-associated kinase PINK1 regulates the mitochondrial protease HTRA2Kristina Klupsch Signal Transduction Laboratory, Cancer Research UK, London Research Institute, London, UK Regulation of keratinocyte differentiation by paracrine-acting dermal factorsJulia Knebel Department of Signal Transduction and Growth Control, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, GermanyStructural studies of the termination of translationSabine Petry Structural Studies Division, Ribosome Structure and Function, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK Stimulus-secretion coupling in pancreatic β-cells of healthy and diabetic ratsTobias Rose Neuroendocrinology Group, European Neuroscience Institute, Göttingen, Germany Evolvability of vulva development in the nematode Pristionchus pacificusHans Zauner Department of Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tübingen, Germany Download Research Articles (1,8 MB)Copyright: © These are open-access articles distributed under the terms
of the “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences
and Humanities”, which permits free, irrevocable and universal right on
access to these contributions and allow the work to be used,
reproduced, or disseminated in digital form, provided the original
author, copyright holder and source are credited.
New Projects
The Board of Trustees of the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds meets 3 times annually to decide upon the allocation of PhD fellowships. On November 2-3, 2007, they discussed 40 applications – preselected from the original 118 applications sent to the Foundation. Once again, the limited resources available meant that a considerable number of convincing applications had to be turned down. 14 projects and fellowship holders were selected, the following 12 projects were taken up.
Role of pacemaker (HCN) channels for the encoding of odour information
Annukka Aho
Center of advanced European studies and research (caesar), Bonn, Germany
Mechanisms modulating asymmetric cell division in C. elegans embryos
Alexandra Bezler
Laboratory of Pierre Gönczy, Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), School of Life Sciences, Epalinges, Switzerland
Investigation of microRNA-mediated mechanisms regulating gene expression
Ines Anna Drinnenberg
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Structural and functional study of the INO80 chromatin-remodelling complex
Sebastian Fenn
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Gene Center, Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU), Munich, Germany
Unravelling the molecular mechanisms that determine spindle position during asymmetric cell division
Matilde Galli
Department for Developmental Biology, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Function of the novel protein PICH in the spindle assembly checkpoint
Nadja Hübner
Department of Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany
Role of sumoylation in chromosome and nuclear organization
Lorenz Kallenbach
Department of Cellular and Molecular Immunology, Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology, Freiburg (Breisgau), Germany
Structural and functional analysis of γ-secretase
Lisa Königsmaier
Laboratory of Thomas Marlovits, Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA), Vienna, Austria
The anaphase-promoting complex in synapse function, learning and memory
Tanja Kuczera
Laboratory for Ageing and Cognitive Diseases, European Neuroscience Institute (ENI), Göttingen, Germany
Structural basis of the tmRNA system for ribosome rescue
Cajetan Neubauer
Structural Studies Division, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
Epigenetic regulation of cellular senescence
Inês Pinheiro
Laboratory of Thomas Jenuwein, Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Vienna, Austria
Epigenetic reprogramming in mouse primordial germ cells
Stefanie Seisenberger
Laboratory of Developmental Genetics and Imprinting, The Babraham Institute, Cambridge, UK
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The first high-resolution structure of translation release complexes consisting of the 70S ribosome, mRNA, tRNA and the release factor bound to its cognate stop codon. For further details, see the article by Sabine Petry.
Copyright: © Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds
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