Press releases

A new study from Uppsala University shows that young adults when sleep-deprived evaluate angry faces as less trustworthy and healthy-looking. Furthermore, neutral and fearful faces appear less attractive following sleep loss. The findings are published in the scientific journal Nature and Science of Sleep.

Coral species exhibit different temperature tolerances. This is in part due to the composition of their microalgae symbionts. With a new method, researchers from Uppsala University were able to predict how individual microalgae might behave under future temperature stress and identify more tolerant coral symbionts. In combination with forthcoming single cell selection and growth experiments, the identification of climate resilient cells provid...

Professor Robert Goodin, Australian National University, is the recipient of the 2022 Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science, often referred to as the ‘Nobel Prize in Political Science’. He is awarded the prize for a number of works over several decades in which he “with acuity and success endeavoured to blend political philosophy with empirical political science to increase the understanding of how decent and dignified societies can be shaped”.

Researchers at Lund University and Uppsala University are conducting one of the largest citizen science projects in Sweden to date. Since the start of the pandemic, study participants have used an app to report how they feel daily even if they are well. This symptom data could be used to estimate COVID-19 infection trends across Sweden and predict hospital admissions due to COVID-19 a week in advance. The results have now been published in the...

A new study from scientists at Uppsala University shows that it took more than 10 millennia from when the first spruces returned to Sweden after the glacial stage of the last Ice Age until the species became widespread. This sluggish rate of initial dispersal has surprised the researchers, since the spruce might have had good prospects of expanding its range.

Immunotherapy is increasingly becoming a successful way to treat cancer. Researchers at Uppsala University have now developed armed CAR-T cells that reinforce the immune defence against cancer and that could increase the possibilities to successfully treat solid tumours. The study has been published in the journal Nature BioMedical Engineering.

Support offered by a phone app can relieve post-traumatic stress and depression. A new study from Uppsala University’s National Centre for Disaster Psychiatry involving 179 people shows that a dedicated PTSD app, PTSD Coach, helps adults suffering from mental health issues after traumatic events.

In the condition known as cavernoma, lesions arise in a cluster of blood vessels in the brain, spinal cord or retina. Researchers at Uppsala University show in a new study that white blood cells and protein structures associated with the immune response infiltrate the vessel lesions. The findings support that inflammation has a role in the development of cavernoma and indicate a potential biomarker for the disease.

Energy storage in lithium-sulfur batteries is potentially higher than in lithium-ion batteries but they are hampered by a short life. Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden have now identified the main bottlenecks in performance.

When the Swedish government and mining company LKAB first shared responsibility for developing the city of Kiruna over a hundred years ago, they focused mostly on practical issues. How does one build a city in a “desolate wilderness”? How does one attract settlers to a new place, far away in the Arctic north? State and corporate ideas about nature, people and the future played a decisive role in the development of Kiruna as a mining town, and ...

Mummification of the dead probably was more common in prehistory than previously known. This discovery was made at the hunter-gatherer burial sites in the Sado Valley in Portugal, dating to 8 000 years ago. A new study, headed by archaeologists at Uppsala University and Linnaeus University in Sweden and University of Lisbon in Portugal, presents new evidence for pre-burial treatments such as desiccation through mummification, which has not bee...

Lava domes form at the top of many volcanoes when viscous lava erupts. When they become unstable, they can collapse and cause a hazard. An international team of researchers has analysed summit dome instabilities at Merapi Volcano, Indonesia. The researchers hope that by understanding the inner processes, volcano collapses can be better forecasted.

The asteroid which killed nearly all of the dinosaurs struck Earth during springtime. This conclusion was drawn by an international team of researchers after having examined thin sections, high-resolution synchrotron X-ray scans, and carbon isotope records of the bones of fishes that died less than 60 minutes after the asteroid impacted. The team presents its findings in the journal Nature.

An African man who lived just 350 years ago was buried in a prehistoric shell midden in Amoreira in Portugal. This was very surprising because Amoreira and other midden sites in the Muge region are well known by archaeologists for the cemeteries of the last hunter-gatherers living in the area 8 000 years-ago. To investigate this burial researchers from Uppsala University and Universidade de Lisboa combined biomolecular archaeology, ancient DNA...

By linking human population studies with experiments in cell and animal models, researchers have provided evidence that complex mixtures of endocrine disrupting chemicals impact children’s brain development and language acquisition. With their novel approach, the scientists show that up to 54 per cent of pregnant women were exposed to experimentally defined levels of concern.

Researchers at Uppsala University have discovered that the ancestors of legionella bacteria infected eukaryotic cells as early as two billion years ago. It happened soon after eukaryotes began to feed on bacteria. These results, described in a new study published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, also contributes to the chicken-or-egg debate about whether mitochondria or phagocytosis came first.

Uppsala researchers have succeeded in designing a molecule that inhibits the replication of coronaviruses and that has great potential for development into a drug suitable for treating COVID-19. The molecule is effective against both the new variant and previously identified coronaviruses. The article has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

For many years, researchers at Uppsala University have been exploring the genetic origins of the Scandinavian grey wolf population, which was founded by only three immigrating wolves. In their new study the scientists show that, after five generations of inbreeding, between 10 and 25 per cent of the original genetic variation has been eliminated.

Although many people know what increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, such as heart attacks, not everyone recognises their own risk factors. This is shown by a new study of 423 Swedes aged 40–70 years, which has now been published in the scientific journal Preventive Medicine Reports.

CRISPR-Cas9, the “genetic scissors”, creates new potential for curing diseases; but treatments must be reliable. In a new study, researchers have discovered that the method can give rise to unforeseen changes in DNA that can be inherited by the next generation. These scientists therefore urge caution and meticulous validation before using CRISPR-Cas9 for medical purposes.

A new study, led by researchers at Uppsala University, shows that all individual patients suffering from severe COVID-19 may have lower oxygen requirements than was formerly believed. The study was conducted at a Swedish district hospital during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020. The scientists’ methods, as well as their results, may be useful for future planning of health care and resources.

In an article in the scientific journal Science, researchers at Uppsala University show how a DNA-binding protein can search the entire genome for its target sequence without getting held up on the way. The result contradicts our current understanding of gene regulation - the genetic code affects how often the proteins bind, but not for how long.

In a new study, participants underwent an intense bout of exercise after both normal sleep and after three nights of curtailed sleep. When they exercised after curtailed sleep, the levels of the heart injury biomarker troponin increased slightly more, compared with when the participants performed exercise in their well-rested condition. The study is a smaller pilot study and it is not yet possible to determine if the findings may be of relevan...

By drilling deep down into sediments on the ocean floor researchers can travel back in time. A research team led from Uppsala University now presents new clues as to when and why a period often referred to as the ‘biogenic bloom’ came to an abrupt end. Changes in the shape of the Earth's orbit around the Sun may have played a part in the dramatic change.

Editorial choices can impact the amplitude of business cycles even if the information that is reported is correct. On reason is that the focus of the reports can be on sectors that are non-representative of the economy in general. A new study shows that financial reporting can explain up to 20 per cent of the business cycles for GDP and 40 per cent of the business cycles for unemployment.

Researchers at Uppsala University have used AI to develop a new method to study brain cancer. The method is based on transplanting tumour cells from patients to fish embryos, followed by observation with AI. The method, which is described in the scientific journal Neuro-Oncology, can partly replace current mouse models for studying tumour growth and treatment.

Several new studies among Syrian refugee families in Turkey and families with infants in Sweden and Bhutan show that children of mothers in poor mental health risk falling behind in their cognitive development. However, very small changes can suffice to break this correlation and enable the children to return to their normal developmental level. Having plenty of people around them and an available community are two of the most important factor...

By searching for the protein TGM1 among patients with various autoimmune skin diseases, researchers have successfully identified a separate disease that can be linked to autoimmunity against TGM1. This backward method demonstrates a new way of identifying autoantigens as markers for serious diseases. By letting autoantigens point to the disease, diagnosis and treatment can be facilitated, according to the study now published in PNAS.

A comprehensive study from Uppsala University shows that several disease-associated protein biomarkers protect healthy individuals from developing inflammatory diseases. The protective effects are attributed to the proteins’ function in preventing tissue damage, a function that might be very different from the effect in a tissue subjected to chronic or acute inflammation.

Researchers from Uppsala University have been able to document and visualise hearing loss-associated genes in the human inner ear, in a unique collaboration study between otosurgeons and geneticists. The findings illustrate that discrete subcellular structures in the human organ of hearing, the cochlea, are involved in the variation of risk of age-related hearing loss in the population. The study is published in BMC Medicine.

Viruses invade our cells and turn them into virus factories. Researchers at Uppsala University, together with a network of national and international collaborators, have identified the way SARS-CoV-2 takes control of our cells – and they have found a possible way to inhibit the ravages of the virus.

For the first time through experiments and theory, Uppsala researchers, together with international collaborators, have been able to measure spin mixing in a ferromagnetic material. Through the experimental measurements, they discovered that a common factor in spin equations, in common use since the 1950s, has been significantly underestimated.

Levels of dopamine and the placebo effect can determine whether patients with social anxieties improve when treated with SSRIs. A new study shows the effect was four times higher for patients with high expectations of the medication compared with patients with low expectations. This was true even though the groups received the same medical treatment. Although SSRIs influence levels of serotonin in the brain, the effects on dopamine had the gre...

Carotenoids are the underlying pigment for much of the enormous variety in color found across birds and form the basis for the colors red, yellow, and orange. In a study published in Current Biology, researchers from Uppsala University and Princeton University have uncovered the genetic basis for the yellow beak of some Darwin’s finch nestlings.

Increasing mental ill health is one of the most urgent public health challenges in the world. The global meeting Uppsala Health Summit, to be held online on 18–21 October, will discuss which preventive measures societies should deploy to better address this troubling trend.

Interaction between the gut microbiota and the immune system is important for host physiology and susceptibility to disease, but also for the efficacy of e.g., cancer immunotherapies. A multidisciplinary research team have now discovered that specific probiotic bacteria shape the intestinal microbiome by affecting B lymphocytes in the Peyer’s patches to induce, produce and release IgA following trafficking to the mucosa of the small intestine ...

The availability of prey and the ability to adapt to changing environments played key roles in the evolution of sharks. A new study, in which over 3,000 shark teeth were analysed, provides new insight into how modern shark communities were established. The results are published in the journal Current Biology.

Can T-cell tests be used to determine whether people have had COVID-19? Scientists at Uppsala University and Karolinska Institutet have jointly analysed this issue under the aegis of the COMMUNITY study at Danderyd Hospital. Their study is published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

Researchers at Uppsala University have designed new antibodies that might provide more effective treatment methods for Alzheimer’s disease. By designing antibodies that bind even to the smaller aggregates, or clumps, of the amyloid-beta protein, it may be possible to check the progress of the disease. The results presents in Translational Neurodegeneration.

Mast cell precursor cells do not just cause an increase in mature mast cells during inflammation, they also play an active role in diseases like asthma. This finding is in a new study by immunology researchers published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The study also emphasises that precursor cells in general can play an active role in inflammation and challenges the current idea that only mature immune cells are involved in ...

Changes in individual cancer cells over time may explain why brain tumours develop so differently, and why some cancer cells are resistant to certain treatments. To track the development of cancer cells, researchers at Uppsala University have devised a new method that, in the long term, may make it easier to develop new, effective drug combinations. The research is presented in the journal Molecular Systems Biology.

Men’s sleep may be more powerfully influenced by the lunar cycle than women’s, according to a new study from Uppsala University, now published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

On 17 September 2021, the annual Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture will take place at Uppsala University’s Aula Magna. This year’s event features both the 2021 Lecture by Dr. Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, and the 2019 Lecture by Christiana Figueres, chief architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which was previously postposed. Journalists and representatives of the press are invited to register for the eve...

How the cell can mend broken DNA using another DNA copy as template has puzzled researchers for years. How is it possible to find the correct sequences in the busy interior of the cell? Researchers from Uppsala university have now discovered the solution; it is easier to find a rope than a ball if you are blindfolded.

Interest in studies and effort are important for pupils in achieving high grades, but high grades also require lots of work at home and extensive parental support. Today’s school system benefits pupils with ample resources and an academic tradition at home while disadvantaging others. These are the findings from an ethnological dissertation from Uppsala University.

Determining an individual’s blood group based on genetic tests instead of merely traditional blood tests can provide a better picture of the risk of cardiovascular diseases. If a patient has two genetic variants of A, B or AB, the risk is twice as high compared with if one is O. This is the finding of a new study from the Uppsala University using data from UK Biobank.

An international team of researchers used historical museum collections to study the effects of human-made antibiotics over the entire history of their application. They found that the increased use of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture in the 1950-1990s led to increases in antibiotic resistance in wild Swedish brown bears. However, they also detected a clear downward trend in antibiotic resistance after national policies to control antib...

Females and males differ in many ways and yet they share the same genome. The only exception is the male Y chromosome. Using beetles as a study system, new research from Uppsala University, now published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, shows that despite of the Y chromosome containing very few genes, it can dramatically change male body size and thus facilitate the evolution of sex differences.

Hormones released after a brain injury contribute to movement problems on the left and right sides of the body, scientists from Uppsala University and elsewhere can now show in a new study in rats. The results also suggest that hormone-blocking treatments may help counteract these effects, a finding that has implications for treating people with traumatic brain injuries or stroke. The study has been published in eLife.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for methods to identify new or repurposed drugs as antivirals. Researchers at Uppsala University and Karolinska Institutet are now presenting a new screening approach that focuses on the identification of virus-specific morphological changes in virus-infected cells.