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Redness, swelling, pain — these are signs of inflammation. It serves to protect the body from pathogens or foreign substances. Researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Cologne were able to show that inflammatory reactions of an important sensor protein proceed in a specific spatial direction. This finding has the potential to conceivably stop inflammation at the “growing end,” and thus bring chronic inflammatory diseases to a halt. The study has now been published in the journal “Science Advances.”
If bacteria or viruses attack living cells or other foreign substances appear in them, the danger sensor with the abbreviation NLRP3 is activated. “The protein deposits in the brain that are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease, the so-called amyloid-ß plaques, can also set NLRP3 in motion,” says Prof. Dr. Matthias Geyer from the Institute for Structural Biology at the University Hospital Bonn, referring to earlier studies. As these previous studies by the researchers show, this reaction increasingly fuels itself: The inflammatory reaction triggered by NLRP3 promotes the further deposition of amyloid-ß plaques and contributes significantly to the disease process.
Once activated, several NLRP3 proteins attach to each other and in this way form the nucleus for a thread-like structure at which more and more proteins gather. “The reaction kicks in as soon as about a dozen of the NLRP3 molecules are present,” Geyer reports. In theory, an infinite number of NLRP3 molecules can join together and extend the thread-like structure — scientifically called a “filament” — further and further. Inga Hochheiser from Prof. Geyer’s team has now been able to show the direction in which this filament grows and continues to expand. “We were able to gain these insights using cryo-electron microscopy. This method makes it possible to observe protein molecules with up to 80,000-fold magnification and thus make them directly visible,” says Hochheiser.
“Still image” of the thread-like structure under the microscope
In tiny steps, the scientist drizzled NLRP3 isolated from cells onto a sample carrier and flash-froze this mixture. This provided the researchers with a kind of “still image” under the cryo-electron microscope. The emerging thread-like structure of NLRP3 molecules arranged side by side was thus visualized. “These individual images made it possible to understand how the filaments elongate, just like in a film,” says Hochheiser. As the molecules fall differently on the sample carrier when drizzled, they can be seen from different perspectives under the microscope. These different views can be combined on the computer to create a three-dimensional image. The results showed that the filaments only form in one direction. “This allowed us to visualize part of the inflammatory apparatus and literally read the direction of growth,” says Prof. Geyer, who led the study and is a member of the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation2 and the Transdisciplinary Research Area “Life and Health” at the University of Bonn.
Stopping chronic inflammatory diseases
“The technical challenge was to find the transitions in the thread-like structures and make them visible in the image,” says Prof. Dr. Elmar Behrmann from the Institute for Biochemistry at the University of Cologne. “The new findings now allow us to target the growing end of the inflammatory response using antibodies or drugs,” Hochheiser explains. This brings the researchers closer to their goal of stopping the further build-up of the inflammatory apparatus and thus counteracting chronic inflammation.
Participating institutions and funding:
In addition to the Institute of Structural Biology and the Institute of Innate Immunity of the University Hospital Bonn, the Institute of Biochemistry of the University of Cologne and The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne (Australia) are involved in the study. Measurements were carried out at the research center caesar in Bonn and at the Rudolf Virchow Center at the University of Würzburg. The study was funded by the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation and the German Research Foundation.
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Islet cell transplants are a promising treatment that can cure difficult-to-treat type 1 diabetes. The cells, taken from a donor pancreas, provide patients with a sustainable and tightly controlled source of insulin. A major problem is getting the patient’s immune system to accept the influx of new donor cells; the patient’s protective T-cells naturally want to reject the foreign invaders.
But a team of investigators co-led by Georgia Institute of Technology researcher Andrés García overcame this hurdle in previous small animal studies. Their technique uses synthetic hydrogel particles called microgels. The microgels present a potent immunomodulatory protein called SA-FasL to modulate the body’s immune response, allowing the transplanted insulin-producing cells to safely do their job, regulating blood glucose levels, and fighting diabetes.
A new study in the journal Science Advances from García and his collaborators moves this hopeful treatment strategy closer to the clinic.
“Immunosuppression is a significant problem for patients, but in our prior work we showed that this biomaterial, this microgel, is a potent immunomodulatory molecule, and can induce permanent acceptance of the new cells,” said García, the Petit Chair in Bioengineering and Regents’ Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and executive director of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.
“But that study was done in mice, and the immune system of a mouse if very different from a human’s,” García added. “And in the progression toward clinical use, you really need to test this strategy in a large animal model.”
Now, they have. García and his fellow researchers from the University of Missouri and Massachusetts General Hospital explain their results in the new paper.
Their study, funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, demonstrates how co-transplanting islet cells with SA-FasL-microgels reversed diabetic symptoms while overcoming the immune response in nonhuman primates. The researchers without using immunosuppressants, which can have dangerous side effects.
The microgels essentially teach the immune system to accept the graft, interrupting the body’s inclination to reject the transplant and circumventing the need for continuous immunosuppression.
“Those immunosuppressive regimens are toxic to the patient, so a major goal in the field has been to develop approaches that will allow you to put in this graft and get it to function without chronic immunosuppression,” said García.
Because the biomaterial can be created in a lab and shipped anywhere, the new therapeutic is essentially off-the-shelf. And now that they’ve proven the strategy works in nonhuman primates, García and his collaborators are confident that patients with type 1 diabetes could have a powerful new treatment option.
García is co-founder of the company that licensed the technology, iTolerance, which is already discussing plans for human clinical trials with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“We are pretty pumped — this is very exciting, and these are hopeful results for people fighting type 1 diabetes,” said García, corresponding author and part of a 20-person research team. “This work wouldn’t have been possible with this team science approach.”
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A novel technique to measure the age of male sperm has the potential to predict the success and time it takes to become pregnant, according to a newly published study by researchers at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.
“Sperm epigenetic clock associates with pregnancy outcomes in the general population,” (link to article here), published in the journal Human Reproduction, found that sperm epigenetic aging clocks may act as a novel biomarker to predict couples’ time to pregnancy. The findings also underscore the importance of the male partner in reproductive success.
“Chronological age is a significant determinant of reproductive capacity and success among couples attempting pregnancy, but chronological age does not encapsulate the cumulative genetic and external — environmental conditions — factors, and thus it serves as a proxy measure of the ‘true’ biological age of cells,” said J. Richard Pilsner, Ph.D., lead author of the study. Dr. Pilsner is the Robert J. Sokol, M.D., Endowed Chair of Molecular Obstetrics and Gynecology and director of Molecular Genetics and Infertility at WSU’s C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development. “Semen quality outcomes utilizing World Health Organization guidelines have been used to assess male infertility for decades, but they remain poor predictors of reproductive outcomes. Thus, the ability to capture the biological age of sperm may provide a novel platform to better assess the male contribution to reproductive success, especially among infertile couples.”
Sperm epigenetic aging is the biological, rather than the chronological, aging of sperm. The study found a 17% lower cumulative probability of pregnancy after 12 months for couples with male partners in older compared to younger sperm epigenetic aging categories. The study involved 379 male partners of couples who discontinued the use of contraception for the purpose of becoming pregnant.
The study also found a higher epigenetic aging of sperm in men who smoked.
The results, Dr. Pilsner said, indicate that higher sperm epigenetic aging is associated with a longer time to become pregnant in couples not assisted by fertility treatment, and among couples that achieved pregnancy, with shorter gestation.
The strong association between sperm epigenetic aging and pregnancy probability and its slowing or reversal through lifestyle choices and/or pharmacological interventions warrants further investigation. In addition, because older fathers have an increased risk of children with adverse neurological outcomes, it is important to understand the potential relation of sperm epigenetic aging on children’s health and development.
“There is a critical need for new measures of male fecundity for assessing overall reproductive success among couples in the general population,” Dr. Pilsner said. “These data show that our sperm epigenetic clocks may fulfill this need as a novel biomarker that predicts pregnancy success among couples not seeking fertility treatment. While chronological age of both partners remains a significant predictor of reproductive success, our clocks likely recapitulate both external and internal factors that drive the biological aging of sperm. Such a summary measure of sperm biological age is of clinical importance, as it allows couples in the general population to realize their probability of achieving pregnancy during natural intercourse, thereby informing and expediting potential infertility treatment decisions.”
Dr. Pilsner advised that because those studied were largely Caucasian, greater and more diverse cohorts are necessary to confirm the association between sperm epigenetic aging and couple pregnancy success in other races and ethnicities.
The research was funded in part by grants from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (R01ES028298 and P30 ES020957); and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (N01-HD-3-3355, N01-HD-3-3356 and N01-HD-3-3358).

The disease of malaria is triggered by single-celled parasites that accumulate in large groups in the salivary glands of mosquitoes before transmission to human beings. The limited space there prevents them from actually moving, unless this restriction is lifted by means of appropriate experimental preparation. In just such experiments, researchers at Heidelberg University have set the pathogens in motion and analysed the acquired image data using cutting-edge methods of image processing. The data show that the collectively moving pathogens form vortex systems that are largely determined by physical principles. Special computer simulations helped identify the mechanisms underlying these rotating movements.
The collective movement of biological organisms is a common phenomenon in the natural world. Insects and fish, for instance, tend to move in swarms. Often, collective movement also occurs at the cellular level, such as when cancer cells migrate from a tumour or bacteria form a biofilm. The collaboration of many individuals can give rise to so-called emergent behaviour — new characteristics that would not otherwise exist in this form. “In physics, collectivity creates such important processes as phase transitions, superconductivity, and magnetic properties,” explains Prof. Dr Ulrich Schwarz, head of the “Physics of Complex Biosystems” working group at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of Heidelberg University. In an interdisciplinary study together with Prof. Dr Friedrich Frischknecht (malaria research) and Prof. Dr Karl Rohr (biomedical image analysis), he has shown that collective movement can also occur in Plasmodium, the causative agent of malaria.
The single-celled organism is injected into the skin through a mosquito bite, developing first in the liver and then later in the blood. Because Plasmodium acts as a single cell in most of its stages, until now its collective properties were hardly studied. In the salivary gland of the mosquito, the parasite has a long and curved shape, similar to a crescent moon, and is known as a sporozoite. “As soon as sporozoites are injected into the skin by the mosquito, individual parasites begin to quickly move toward the blood vessels. This is the critical phase of the infection, because it is successful only if a pathogen reaches the blood stream,” stresses Prof. Frischknecht.
In their studies at the Center for Infectious Diseases of Heidelberg University Hospital, Friedrich Frischknecht and his team discovered that the parasites in infected salivary glands can be mobilised as a collective. To do so, the salivary glands are dissected from the mosquito and carefully pressed between two small glass plates. The researchers were surprised to discover that the crescent moon-shaped cells form rotating vortices in the new preparation. They are reminiscent of the collective movements of bacteria or fish, although they differ in that they always rotate in the same direction. The parasite vortices therefore have a chiral character and — likewise unexpectedly — fluctuate in size. According to Prof. Frischknecht, these oscillations point to emergent characteristics, since they are possible only in the collective of the moving cells and grow stronger in larger vortices.
To understand these phenomena more precisely, the experimental data were analysed quantitatively. The groups of Ulrich Schwarz and Karl Rohr, head of the Biomedical Computer Vision Group at BioQuant Centre of Heidelberg University, used cutting-edge methods of image processing for this purpose. They were able to track individual parasites in the rotating vortices and measure both their speed and curvature. Using so-called agent-based computer simulations, it was possible to precisely identify those laws that can explain all aspects of the experimental observations. The interplay of active movement, curved shape of the cell, and chirality in conjunction with mechanical flexibility is sufficient to explain the sorting and oscillation phenomena in the parasite vortices. The oscillations the scientists observed arise because the movement of the individual pathogens is converted into elastic energy that is stored in the vortex. “Our new model system offers the opportunity to better understand the physics of collectives with elastic properties and perhaps render them usable for technical applications in the future,” states the physicist Ulrich Schwarz.
In the next step, the researchers will investigate exactly how the chirality of movement comes about. The structure of sporozoites suggests different possibilities that can be studied in experiments with genetic mutations. Initial computer simulations have already shown that the right- and left-turning parasites quickly segregate and generate separate vortex systems. A better understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms could open up new avenues to disrupt sporozoite movement at the onset of every malaria infection. “In any event, our study has shown that the mechanics of the pathogens play an extremely important and heretofore overlooked role — a finding that also opens up new perspectives for medical interventions,” explains the infectiologist Friedrich Frischknecht.
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The microbes that help break down food actually tell the gut how to do its job better, according to a new study in mice at Duke.
The researchers said it appears that the microbes are able to influence which of the gut’s genes are being called into action, and in turn, that interaction might lead to a remodeling of the epithelial cells lining the gut so that they match the diet.
“The gut is a fascinating interface between an animal and the world it lives in, and it receives information from both the diet and the microbes it harbors,” said John Rawls, Ph.D., a professor of molecular genomics and microbiology at Duke and director of the Duke Microbiome Center.
The study appeared May 6 in the open access journal Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
To begin to parse the messages coming from the microbes to the cells of the gut, the Duke researchers compared mice raised without any gut microbes and those with a normal gut microbiome. The researchers focused on the crosstalk between RNA transcription — DNA being copied to RNA — and the proteins that turn this copying process on or off in the small intestine, where most uptake of fat and other nutrients occurs.
While both the germ-free and normal mice were able to metabolize fatty acids in a high-fat diet, the striking finding was that the germ-free animals used a very different set of genes to deal with a high-fat meal.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Aster GuardiansA Kenyan nurse who campaigns against early marriage and female genital mutilation says she is “speechless” after winning a prize of $250,000 (£205,000).Anna Qabale Duba’s colleagues say she always goes the extra mile for others in her pastoralist community in the northern county of Marsabit, and runs a school in her village.”This award will help me to expand my school all over Kenya,” she told BBC Newsday.In the morning the classrooms of Torbi Pioneer Academy host lessons for children, before their parents come in for literacy classes in the afternoons – and sometimes both age groups get the same homework.Ms Qabale says she was the only university-educated girl from Torbi village, and the only girl educated past primary school level in her family of 19 children.The 31-year-old now holds a Masters in Epidemiology and has set up a foundation aimed at empowering young girls and mothers.”I am so passionate about education. After tasting the fruits of education, I decided to go back home to empower the rest,” she told the BBC.Image source, Getty ImagesThrough her Qabale Duba Foundation, the school she has built in her village also teaches parents about key sexual and reproductive health issues.Working as a nurse at Marsabit County Referral Hospital, she strives to end harmful cultural practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM) and early marriage, and it is for her work in these areas that Dubai-based Aster DM healthcare says she beat more than 24,000 nominees to their Global Nursing Award.”It’s not easy to talk about these things publicly. Being a woman – and we come from our patriarchal families – it’s not easy to talk about them, but I am really trying my level best,” Ms Qabale told the BBC.”I am using education as an excuse for my advocacy work to campaign against these devices.” ‘I escaped forced marriage aged 14’Her personal experiences have shaped her convictions.”I underwent female genital mutilation at the age of 12 and I narrowly escaped early forced marriage at the of 14,” she said.Even though FGM is illegal in Kenya, around 91% of girls and young women are subjected to it in the country’s northern regions, according to the Kenyan Anti-FGM board.Parents and guardians often take their daughters across the border into neighbouring countries to escape Kenya’s stringent laws. Colleagues say Ms Qabale’s drive has seen women and girls become more aware of their healthcare rights. Image source, Aster Guardians”She knows all too well the challenges that young girls face,” Hassan Halakhe, director of preventive promotion health services at Marsabit County Referral Hospital, told the BBC.”Many of them now do not miss out on classes as they are given sanitary towels to use when they are on their menses. They are also taught how to make reusable pads.”Thursday’s ceremony in Dubai was Ms Qabale’s second high-profile gong, having won the Global Citizens’ People’s Choice Award in New York in 2019.Kenya’s Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe praised Ms Qabale’s “hard work and her fearless spirit”, while Marsabit County Referral Hospital Director Liban Wako says “this award means so much to young girls in Marsabit – that they too can achieve their dreams.” You may also be interested in:This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.More on this storyKenyan science teacher wins global prizeA quick guide to Kenya

Researchers at the Department of Neurology of the University of Bern and University Hospital Bern identified how the brain triages emotions during dream sleep to consolidate the storage of positive emotions while dampening the consolidation of negative ones. The work expands the importance of sleep in mental health and opens new ways of therapeutic strategies.
Rapid eye movement (REM or paradoxical) sleep is a unique and mysterious sleep state during which most of the dreams occur together with intense emotional contents. How and why these emotions are reactivated is unclear. The prefrontal cortex integrates many of these emotions during wakefulness but appears paradoxically quiescent during REM sleep. “Our goal was to understand the underlying mechanism and the functions of such a surprising phenomenon,” says Prof. Antoine Adamantidis from the Department of Biomedical Research (DBMR) at the University of Bern and the Department of Neurology at the Inselspital, University Hospital of Bern.
Processing emotions, particularly distinguishing between danger and safety, is critical for the survival of animals. In humans, excessively negative emotions, such as fear reactions and states of anxiety, lead to pathological states like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD). In Europe, roughly 15% of the population is affected by persistent anxiety and severe mental illness. The research group headed by Antoine Adamantidis is now providing insights into how the brain helps to reinforce positive emotions and weaken strongly negative or traumatic emotions during REM sleep. This study was published in the journal Science.
A Dual mechanism
The researchers first conditioned mice to recognize auditory stimuli associated with safety and others associated with danger (aversive stimuli). The activity of neurons in the brain of mice was then recorded during sleep-wake cycles. In this way, the researchers were able to map different areas of a cell and determine how emotional memories are transformed during REM sleep.
Neurons are composed of a cell body (soma) that integrates information coming from the dendrites (inputs) and send signals to other neurons via their axons (outputs). The results obtained showed that cell somas are kept silent while their dendrites are activated. “This means a decoupling of the two cellular compartments, in other words soma wide asleep and dendrites wide awake,” explains Adamantidis. This decoupling is important because the strong activity of the dendrites allows the encoding of both danger and safety emotions, while the inhibitions of the soma completely block the output of the circuit during REM sleep. In other words, the brain favours the discrimination of safety versus danger in the dendrites, but block the over-reaction to emotion, in particular danger.
A survival advantage
According to the researchers, the coexistence of both mechanisms is beneficial to the stability and survival of the organisms: “This bi-directional mechanism is essential to optimize the discrimination between dangerous and safe signals,” says Mattia Aime from the DBMR, first author of the study. If this discrimination is missing in humans and excessive fear reactions are generated, this can lead to anxiety disorders. The findings are particularly relevant to pathological conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorders, in which trauma is over-consolidated in the prefrontal cortex, day after day during sleep.
Breakthrough for sleep medicine
These findings pave the way to a better understanding of the processing of emotions during sleep in humans and open new perspectives for therapeutic targets to treat maladaptive processing of traumatic memories, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) and their early sleep-dependent consolidation. Additional acute or chronic mental health issues that may implicate this somatodendritic decoupling during sleep include acute and chronic stress, anxiety, depression, panic, or even anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure. Sleep research and sleep medicine have long been a research focus of the University of Bern and the Inselspital, Bern University Hospital. “We hope that our findings will not only be of interest to the patients, but also to the broad public,” says Adamantidis.
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In early research led by the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center, the oral medication zanubrutinib was found to help most patients with a slow-growing type of cancer known as marginal zone lymphoma.
Cancers shrunk in 80% of the 20 patients on the clinical trial with marginal zone lymphoma, with a fifth experiencing complete remission.
A much smaller proportion of the 33 participants with follicular lymphoma, a similar cancer, responded to the drug. But imaging showed no signs of cancer for 18% of those who did.
The most common side effects ranged from diarrhea, bruising and rashes to colds, fevers and reduced levels of white blood cells, which are part of the immune system and important for fighting infections.
Based on the results of this research as well as a secondary study named MAGNOLIA, the Food and Drug Administration approved zanubrutinib on a contingent basis for adults with marginal zone lymphoma that has returned or proven resistant to other treatments.
“Treatment options with improved tolerability and better disease control were much needed for marginal zone lymphoma and follicular lymphoma,” said Tycel Phillips, M.D., a hematologist at the Rogel Cancer Center, a clinical associate professor at the University of Michigan Medical School and the lead author of the study. “While the small size of this study limits broad conclusions, the safety and efficacy results highlight the potential for zanubrutinib as an addition to available therapies for these cancers.”
Lymphoma is a cancer that begins in the lymphatic system, the tissues and organs that produce and store white blood cells. Marginal zone and follicular lymphomas develop when white blood cells called B cells become damaged and start to grow uncontrollably.
Thus far, physicians have not been able to cure patients of their marginal zone or follicular lymphomas with chemotherapy, so researchers have been eager to find other, more tolerable and successful treatments for the diseases.
Zanubrutinib is a novel type of drug called a Bruton Tyrosine Kinase inhibitor, which blocks an enzyme known as BTK that plays a crucial role in a signaling pathway lymphomas are often dependent on in order to survive and grow. The medication is only the third BTK inhibitor to be approved for cancers that begin in B cells.
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Patients prescribed antibiotics in hospital are more likely to get fungal infections because of disruption to the immune system in the gut, according to a new study from the University of Birmingham and National Institutes of Health.
Using immune-boosting drugs alongside the antibiotics could reduce the health risks from these complex infections say the researchers.
The life-threatening fungal infection invasive candidiasis is a major complication for hospitalised patients who are given antibiotics to prevent sepsis and other bacterial infections that spread quickly around hospitals (such as C. diff). Fungal infections can be more difficult to treat than bacterial infections, but the underlying factors causing these infections are not well understood.
A team in the University’s Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy, in conjunction with researchers at the National Institutes of Health, discovered that antibiotics disrupt the immune system in the intestines, meaning that fungal infections were poorly controlled in that area. Unexpectedly, the team also found that where fungal infections developed, gut bacteria were also able to escape, leading to the additional risk of bacterial infection.
The study, published in Cell Host and Microbe, demonstrates the potential for immune-boosting drugs, but the researchers also say their work also highlights how antibiotics can have additional effects on our bodies that affect how we fight infection and disease. This in turn underscores the importance of careful stewardship of available antibiotics.
Lead author Dr Rebecca Drummond said: “We knew that antibiotics make fungal infections worse, but the discovery that bacterial co-infections can also develop through these interactions in the gut was surprising. These factors can add up to a complicated clinical situation — and by understanding these underlying causes, doctors will be better able to treat these patients effectively.”
In the study, the team used mice treated with a broad-spectrum antibiotic cocktail and then infected these animals with Candida albicans, the most common fungus that causes invasive candidiasis in humans. They found that although infected mice had increased mortality, this was caused by infection in the intestine, rather than in the kidneys or other organs.
In a further step, the team pinpointed what parts of the immune system were missing from the gut after antibiotic treatment, and then added these back into the mice using immune-boosting drugs similar to those used in humans. They found this approach helped reduce the severity of the fungal infection.
The researchers followed up the experiment by studying hospital records, where they were able to show that similar co-infections might occur in humans after they have been treated with antibiotics.
“These findings demonstrate the possible consequences of using antibiotics in patients who are at risk of developing fungal infections,” added Dr Drummond. “If we limit or change how we prescribe antibiotics we can help reduce the number of people who become very ill from these additional infections — as well as tackling the huge and growing problem of antibiotic resistance.”
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A few stem cells, various growth factors, four to six weeks of time — and of course a great deal of expertise are needed to create a scaled-down but nevertheless lifelike and functional replica of a cervix in the laboratory.
A new publication that has now appeared in the journal Nature Protocols shows how the process works in detail. Dr. Cindrilla Chumduri, head of the research group at the Department of Microbiology at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg (JMU), is responsible for this. The infection and cancer biologist has been researching the physiological processes in the cervical tissue for a long time. She is particularly interested in the conditions under which cancer develops there.
“Until recently, science has lacked a system that well reflects the cellular, physiological and functional properties of the different cell types in the cervix,” says Chumduri. This, she says, has made it difficult to study normal physiology, disease development and infectious processes.
With the three-dimensional organoids she has developed, she says, “new opportunities are now opening up to study the biology of the cervix, infections and the development of cancer.” New applications in personalized medicine, the search for new active substances, interventions on the genome, the modelling of diseases: With the help of organoids, scientists could now put all this into practice much more easily than before.
The cervix has many functions
The cervix is a complicated structure. One of its most important tasks is to enable the passage of sperm into the uterine cavity so that fertilization of the egg can take place. On the other hand, it must protect the female reproductive tract from dangerous invaders such as fungi, viruses and bacteria and from ascending infections. In addition, at the end of a pregnancy, it must be able to dilate significantly so that the fetus can pass through it.