Press releases

The oceans represent a yet unharnessed energy resource that is attracting increasing attention from politicians and power companies. International environmental officials and the Nordic region's three largest power companies will be on hand when researchers meet in Uppsala from 7-9 September to exchange insights.

A new antiplatelet agent reduces the mortality and recurrence risks associated with heart attacks without increasing the risk of major bleeding. This has been shown by a large-scale international clinical study (PLATO) led by the Uppsala Clinical Research Center (UCR) at Uppsala University and Uppsala University Hospital and the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina, USA.

A new anticoagulant agent is more effective and safer than warfarin in preventing stroke in atrial fibrillation (AF) patients. This is one finding of an extensive international clinical study, RE-LY, led by the Uppsala Clinical Research Center (UCR) at Uppsala University and Uppsala University Hospital.

Researchers at Uppsala University have succeeded in extracting long DNA fragments from dried, pressed plant material collected in the 1700s by Linnaeus' apprentice Adam Afzelius. It is hoped that the study, led by Associate Professor Katarina Andreasen, will shed light on whether plants growing today at Linnaeus' Hammarby estate outside Uppsala reflect the species cultivated by Linnaeus himself.

Researchers from Uppsala University and the Karolinska Institute have found major genetic differences between the human variants of the intestinal parasite Giardia intestinalis. Sequencing of the genomes using the latest technologies shows that people are infected by two different Giardia species, according to a study published in the journal PLoS Pathogens today.

Researchers at Uppsala University have found that the protein coding parts of a gene are packed in special nucleosomes. The same type of packaging is found in the roundworm C elegans, which is a primeval relative of humans. The mechanism can thereby be traced back a billion years in time, according to the study presented in the journal Genome Research.

The mode of reproduction seen in modern sharks is nearly 400 million years old. That is the conclusion drawn by Professor Per Erik Ahlberg, Uppsala University, from his discovery of a so-called "clasper" in a primitive fossil fish earlier this year. The research results are published today in Nature.

The Bioclipse project at Uppsala University has won several international awards for its advanced IT-system for research and education in biotechnology. A brand new version of Bioclipse has now been released, with many new features that will make it even easier to adapt to the needs of the researchers.

Preventive operations are being used more and more often to treat abdominal aortic aneurysms. Even though the operation is now being offered to ever older and sicker patients, the long-term survival of those who have had the operation has improved over the last two decades. This is shown in a major Swedish study in which researchers from Uppsala University examined 12,000 patients.

Swedish and polish researchers now publish results from the analysis of the putative remains of Copernicus. A DNA-analysis of shed of hairs found in a book from Museum Gustavianum, Uppsala University, was one interesting piece in the project.

Historical collections that include everything ever written in a dozen American and British newspapers since they started are now available electronically. Donald MacQueen from Uppsala University, Sweden, has carried out the first comprehensive study that makes use of this resource in order to track changes in language usage, a method that makes it possible to attain an entirely new degree of precision in dating.

Contrary to predictions, males of high genetic quality are not very successful when it comes to fertilizing eggs. A new study on seed beetles by Swedish and Danish scientists Göran Arnqvist and Trine Bilde shows that when a female mates with several males, the males of low genetic quality are the most successful in fertilizing eggs. The study is published in this week's issue of Science.

The wave power array outside Lysekil is one of five projects to share the SEK 875 million that the government has allocated for a special fund for the coming three years. This was announced at a press conference in Lysekil today, where the present and future of wave power was presented on the basis of tests at the experimental facility.

Today the research councils in Sweden presented their proposals regarding how funding for strategic research in the first 20 of a total of 24 selected research fields is to be allocated among Sweden’s institutions of higher education. Among the projects pegged for approval, Uppsala University is the lead applicant for 7 and a co-applicant for 3.

After last year's success with Tosca, Uppsala University is now pursuing a new opera project. Otello will be staged in the University's Grand Auditorium in June 2010.

In this week's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS, Uppsala University scientists describe a new mechanism behind an important process that causes a rapid reduction of DNA in the chromosomes of bacteria. The findings advance our knowledge of how DNA content has been reduced, which is something that has occurred in bacteria that live as parasites inside the cells of other organisms.

A close relative of the microorganism that causes tuberculosis in humans has been found to form spores. This is a sensational finding because researchers have long been convinced that these kinds of bacteria-the mycobacteria-were incapable of forming spores.

When mobbing predators, Siberian jays use over a dozen different calls to communicate the level of danger and predator category to other members of their own group. A Swedish study from Uppsala University, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences, shows birds have evolved call systems that are as sophisticated as those of primates and meerkats.

Swedish and international media have recently reported that a 16-year old Swede has presented the solution to the Bernoulli numbers. This is not correct. The solution was previously known to the mathematical community.

In-growth and new generation of blood vessels, which must take place if a wound is to heal or a tumor is to grow, have been thought to occur through a branching and further growth of a vessel against a chemical gradient of growth factors. Now a research team at Uppsala University and its University Hospital has shown that mechanical forces are considerably more important than was previously thought. The findings, published today in the journal Na

After the ESS meeting last night it´s now very likely that the place for a European ESS will be Lund, Sweden. Swedish researchers welcome the positive signal.

The manuscript Textual Analysis of a Recovered Memory Trial Assisted by Computer Search for Keywords was not approved for publication by the Uppsala University series Acta - Uppsala Studies in Education.

The unique material that exists in Europe's, and above all the Nordic countries' and Sweden's, biobanks is a goldmine for research. To put them to their best possible use, this information will now be coordinated, as will the ethical and technical guidelines regarding the use of the biobanks.

Glioma is the most common and most serious form of brain tumors that affect adults. It has not yet been determined which specific type of cell in the brain is the source of the tumor, but now a research team at Uppsala University can show that glioma can start from immature support cells. The findings are published in the scientific journal Oncogene.

Upgrading sewage treatment in the southeastern Baltic Sea states to Swedish standards may suffice to reduce algal blooms in the Baltic to levels of the 1950s. This is shown in a study performed by Andreas Bryhn at Uppsala University that is published in the journal PLoS ONE.

Inhibiting the "drug efflux pumps" in bacteria, which function as their defence mechanisms against antibiotics, can mask the effect of mutations that have led to resistance in the form of low-affinity drug binding to target molecules in the cell. This is shown by researchers at Uppsala University in a new study that can provide clues to how the development of resistance to antibiotics in bacteria can be delayed.

When Uppsala researchers found immature stem cells in the inner ear of humans a few years ago, it caused a global sensation. They have also managed to grow hearing nerves from stem cells and human tissue from donated cochleae. Moving images of how nerve cells, like social, swimming beings, seek out each other are now suggesting entirely new and breathtaking perspectives to researchers.

The discovery that led to a unique method for examining human proteins and their function was made at Uppsala University a few years ago. This week the method is being presented by the spin-out company Oling and its new collaborative partner Abnova at a major cancer conference in the US.

The fossil record usually shows what adult animals looked like. But the appearance and lifestyle of juvenile animals often differ dramatically from those of the adults. A classic example is provided by frogs and salamanders. New discoveries from Uppsala, Cambridge and Duke Universities, published in Science, show that some of the earliest backboned land animals also underwent such changes of lifestyle as they grew up.

An international research team, including Professor Rajeev Ahuja's research group at Uppsala University, has shown that small additions of potassium drastically improve the hydrogen-storage properties of certain types of hydrogen compounds. The findings are published in the Web edition of Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

The American political scientist Philippe C. Schmitter has been awarded the 2009 Skytte Prize. He is receiving the award for his extensive and pioneering studies of the interplay between the state and special interest organizations in modern democracies.

Klas Kullander, associate professor of neuroscience at Uppsala University, is one of five winners of the Göran Gustafsson Prize for 2009 - the largest national prize for research in natural science and the most prestigious for young researchers. The prize is SEK 4.5 million over three years, as well as a personal award of SEK 100,000.

Certain bacteria have learned to manipulate the proportion of females and males in insect populations. Now Uppsala University researchers have mapped the entire genome of a bacterium that infects a close relative of the fruit fly. The findings, published in PNAS, reveal extremely high frequencies of gene exchange within this group of bacteria.

Researchers at Uppsala University, together with colleagues at the Karolinska Institute and the Sanger Institute, have now found all the genes the determine the dosage of the blood-thinning drug warfarin. The findings are published in the scientific journal PLoS Genetics.

Hurdia victoria was originally described in 1912 as a crustacean-like animal. Now, researchers from Uppsala University and colleagues reveal it to be just one part of a complex and remarkable new animal that has an important story to tell about the origin of the largest group of living animals, the arthropods. The findings are being published in this week's issue of Science.

This week the Vice Chancellor submitted Uppsala University’s applications for the strategic research funding that the government made available with the purpose of bolstering Sweden’s international competitiveness as a research nation and hastening the practical application of findings to solve global societal problems.

Researchers at Uppsala University and Harvard University have collaboratively developed a new theoretical model to explain how proteins can rapidly find specific DNA sequences, even though there are many obstacles in the way on the chromosomes. The findings are being published today in the scientific journal Nature Physics.

An international research team, involving Professor Rajeev Ahuja at Uppsala University and researchers in the USA, set out to understand the mechanism behind the catalytic effects of carbon nanomaterials. Experimental and theoretical efforts were combined in a synergistic approach and the results, published this week in the ASAP section of the journal Nano Letters, will fasten efforts to develop new catalysts.

New large-scale sequencing technology will revolutionize biomedical research in the coming decade. Uppsala University's entity UPPMAX is now expanding its operations and providing researchers with a powerful system for large-scale compute and storage of data, which can lead to new breakthroughs in research on our public-health disorders.

International environmental law on biological diversity is now being called into question in a dissertation at Uppsala University. Unclear legislation entails that biological diversity falls under an old legal system, and this negatively affects coordinated efforts, according to Aðalheiður Jóhannsdóttir.

Researchers at Uppsala University have managed for the first time to measure magnetic properties in new materials quantitatively with the help of electron microscopy - with unparalleled precision. The secret behind the breakthrough is a successful elaboration of electron microscope technology. The findings, published in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters, means that the energy loss entailed in all electromagnetic materials can ultimat

The discovery by Uppsala University researchers of a previously unknown protein in the cells of the lower air ways brings new potential for early diagnosis of a serious lung disease. The findings, published in the Web edition of the American journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, can also provide new knowledge of the cause of common diseases like asthma and chronic bronchitis.

What has been impossible has now been shown to be possible - an alloy between two incompatible elements. The findings are being published in this week's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA.

Together with three colleagues Professor Peter Oppeneer of Uppsala Univeristy has now explained the hitherto unsolved mystery in materials science known as ‘the hidden order' - how a new phase arises and why. This discovery can be of great importance to our understanding of how new material properties occur, how they can be controlled and exploited in the future. The findings are published in the scientific journal Nature Materials.

Researchers at Uppsala University can now show that what is good for one sex is not always good for the other sex. In fact, evolutionary conflicts between the two sexes cause characteristics and behaviors that are downright injurious to the opposite sex. The findings are being published in the scientific journal Current Biology.

Mating can be exhausting. When fruit flies mate, the females' genes are activated to roughly the same extent as when an immune reaction starts. This is shown in a study at Uppsala University that is now appearing in the scientific publication Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

Researchers at Uppsala University have developed a new tool that makes it possible to study the signals in the body that control the generation of blood vessels. The researchers' findings, published in the new issue of Lab on a Chip, enable scientists to determine what signals in the body attract or repel blood vessels, knowledge that is extremely interesting in tumor research.

Roughly 100,000 Swedes are under treatment with the blood-thinning drug Waran. Patients evince varying sensitivity to Waran, which makes the initiation of treatment a risky balancing act between hemorrhaging and clotting. Now researchers at Uppsala University have developed a model for calculating the appropriate dose before treatment starts. The study appears in the publication New England Journal of Medicine.

Why have some of our genes evolved rapidly? It is widely believed that Darwinian natural selection is responsible, but research led by a group at Uppsala University, suggests that a separate neutral (nonadaptive) process has made a significant contribution to human evolution. Their results have been published today in the journal PLoS Biology.