Tag: outreach

“The flexibility offered by SIB is quite unique”: find out more on the themes of learning and development at the institute and meet Monique Zahn, at SIB since 2012 and who recently took on a new role as Biodata Resources Support Manager, in...

Find out what can be learnt from studying ancient DNA.

Today marks the anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s famous work ‘On the Origin of Species’, published on 24 November 1859. And how best to celebrate evolutionary biology than through stories showing some of the real-life implications...

How to popularize evolution and phylogenetics? The new project “In the light of evolution” aims to foster greater public interest as well as a practical understanding of this fundamental but rather abstract theme.

A new version of ChromosomeWalk offers a gateway to an entertaining ‘genome browser’, enriched with a new selection of stories on fascinating genes – in English, French and German – as well to the PrecisionMed website for an illustrated tour of...

A new workshop for classrooms offers the opportunity to discover the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, in particular its genome and proteins. These materials result from a partnership between SIB and the University of Lausanne (SCMS).

One particular AMP from the venom of a tropical wasp, Polybia paulista, appears not only to present anti-cancer properties but also to fight off an infection known as Chagas disease which affects millions of people every year and worldwide. Its...

Cryptococcus neoformans is a fungal pathogen which infects cells by using the copper it finds in them for its own metabolism, while the host retaliates by raising the concentration of metal to create a toxic environment for the pathogen. In...

Read how the ZBP1 protein comes into action when cells are undergoing stress in a viral infection for example, but is also associated with the onset and progression of certain cancers, as well as several autoimmune diseases.

Discover the role tiny entities such as proteins play in the grand scheme of things – from smells to diseases – through an inspired dialogue between a biologist and a non-specialist.

A protein that has been coined HMCES, which is found throughout the three domains of life, and even in certain viruses it seems, can repair damage on single-stranded DNA.

One particular fungus, Armillaria gallica, created a buzz in the 1990s when scientists announced that they had found a colony whose rhizomorphs seemingly stretched over tens of acres. However, as rhizomorphs grow, they also spend a lot of time...

Welcome to the latest activity report of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. To get a sense of its diverse nationwide community of Data scientists for life, across 80 Groups and top institutions in Switzerland, simply start browsing!

For shoots to appear along the length of a rose's stem, besides light, sugars are required in huge quantities and, for this, many enzymes are triggered into action. In the common modern rose, Rosa hybrida, one such enzyme is a vacuolar invertase -...

Viruses need to get inside cells in order to multiply, and this is what brings on infection. Viruses recognise molecules on the surface of cells to which they bind, thus enabling them - or parts of them - to enter the host cells where they rapidly...

When too much uric acid is produced, it precipitates as urate crystals that slowly build up finally causing excruciating pain - surprisingly at the base of the big toe in about half of gout cases. Why is uric acid elimination sometimes...

Toxic compounds that find their way into microorganisms are usually funnelled out by what are known as efflux pumps. These pumps pose one problem for humans however, and that is drug resistance. One such pump is the Trichophyton rubrum ABC...

One promising attempt to shift A, B and AB blood types to the 'universal' O blood type involves bacteria from our gut microbiome, and two enzymes: a D-galactosamine deacetylase and a D-galactosamine galactosaminidase.

Understanding how pain occurs on the molecular plane helps scientists find ways of designing pain relievers. However, more often than not, pain is usually accompanied by swelling which has a protective role. So we face a conundrum: how do you...

The PrecisionMed.ch website, developed by the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, in collaboration with the University of Lausanne and the CHUV (Lausanne University Hospital), with the support of the SantéPerSo initiative, offers illustrated...

A plant pathogen known as Phytophthora sojae uses a lure to confound soybean's immune response to infection.

Magnetotactic bacteria have learned to use the Earth's magnetic field as a speedy highway to travel to nutrients of interest. They do this by way of minute iron-rich pouches - or magnetosomes - that are aligned along their middle and act much like...

SIB Director Christine Durinx was interviewed by L’AGEFI, a Swiss daily newspaper focused on economics, finance and politics.

Because of their inability to move, plants have devised the most elaborate ways of deceiving their environment in order to grow. European maize, for example, is able to synthesize a molecule known as (E)-β-caryophyllene which is released by...

In cells, special enzymes - of which there are many - have the task of adding or removing molecules onto or from proteins to this end. One of these is SET domain protein 3, or SETD3 which shifts the behaviour of a certain kind of actin...

Life strives on reproduction. Over time, it has found very imaginative ways to proliferate in multitudinous forms - from protozoa wriggling in the bottom of pools to big cats racing across the African plains and birds flying swiftly through the...

Would Nature not tend instinctively towards symmetry? In our eyes, symmetry often spells equilibrium, a source of beauty. Consider the work of architects, or engineers. Houses, skyscrapers, bridges and dams are usually symmetric which is not only,...

We are all bound to become prey, predator or competitor one day. Whichever way you look at it. That is why, over time, all living beings have acquired their very own palette of defence mechanisms. Roses grow thorns. Bacteria fire toxins...

There are many proteins crouching in the recesses of databanks whose role in vivo eludes researchers. Despite similarities of all kinds they may share with other proteins, they seem to have been designed for another purpose...

Following the success of previous editions, children aged 9 to 14 are once again invited to take part in SIB's bioinformatics hackathon in Geneva on Saturday 23 March.

Though it may seem a paradox, life is riddled with barriers. This is because it is sometimes necessary to create dead ends to keep things at a healthy distance. Obstructions of this kind exist at all levels of living matter...

No one likes the cold. Humans wear scarves, fur boots, quilted coats and woollen hats to keep the harshness of winter out while other creatures grow their own fur or line their bodies with a thick layer of blubber...

Movement is what sustains life. Organisms need to move to find food, seek shelter and to reproduce. Mobility is also essential inside organisms where cells are continuously dividing and migrating. There is also unceasing movement inside every cell...

There are times in life when things are best left unsaid. So you bite your tongue or someone bites it for you. Either way, you are silenced and no - or less - harm is done. Nature also has its techniques for muffling genes whose products are not...

Discover the spirit behind Switzerland’s vibrant community of scientists dedicated to making sense out of biological data...

Hundreds of SIB Members from across Switzerland came to Biel/Bienne on 26 June to attend the SIB Days – our 2-day internal conference and a unique opportunity for the bioinformatics community to connect.

Left only to the passage of time, everything gravitates towards chaos. Gardens become overgrown. Roads gather potholes and cracks. Relationships wither, and teeth rot. We have ways of dealing with this however.

Are researchers austere? Is bioinformatics arid? Judge for yourself, with this handsome book published by SIB to mark the Institute's 20th anniversary, thanks to the financial support of many sponsors.

Life is a continuous balance between what needs to remain, and what must disappear. We are not aware of it but our bodies unceasingly shed cells that have received orders to die, which is a necessary process if tissues are to be renewed or to stay...

With the creation of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics in 1998, Switzerland made a historical move and positioned itself as a pioneer in the field of data science.

It has happened to all of us. You are seated in a good restaurant and the waiter has just brought you the wine you ordered. He solemnly shows you the label. You nod, and he proceeds to slit open the lead seal with the tip of his corkscrew.

Discover the story of the patients for whom personalized medicine is already a reality. A TV documentary invites you to follow them with a team of oncologists, pathologists, biologists and bioinformaticians, in their search for a treatment against...

Why is it some people don't have fingerprints? Or that others are more at risk of gluten intolerance? And what does bioinformatics have to do with all this? Find out with our mobile game Genome Jumper.

First in Geneva at the Musée d'Ethnographie (MEG), then in Paris at the Musée de l'Homme, the theatre play Genome Odyssey invited the public - children in particular - to dive into scientific research and the Aboriginal Australian traditions.

Time runs its treacherous fingers along everything. The smoothed edges of a pebble. The polished wood of a staircase. The worn joints in our bones. Sometimes, even, the erosion of our memory. Every day, every hour, every minute, we get a little...

As of this month, the buildings of the University of Geneva, the University of Lausanne and the Biozentrum at the University of Basel – three of SIB's main locations – are harboring colourful banners celebrating SIB’s 20th anniversary.

Multitasking is not limited to computers. On a day-to-day basis, humans frequently deal with more than one thing at a time - for the sake of speed, convenience and no doubt productivity.

At the occasion of SIB's 20th anniversary and of the recent launch of the SantéPerso initiative and platform, the role of bioinformatics in the personalized health context is in the spotlight, with two interviews.

Whether we are retracing the history of our ancestors, designing new drugs or understanding what gives Swiss Gruyère its unique flavour, bioinformatics has become an essential discipline.

One cell. One organism. One fate: male, or female. The way Nature designs things, you would expect traits as fundamental as those that make a boy a boy or a girl a girl, for instance, to be inscribed in their respective DNA from the very start.