Exciting science from 2014 to keep an eye on
Artificial blood, hopes in the fight against AIDS, Ebola and Tuberculosis - but also humanoid computers and better microscopes. This and much more kept scientists busy in 2014 and will continue to do so in 2015.
Viruses against tumor cells
Researchers from the university of Tübingen and the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute published a study in 2014, showing that modified measles viruses are able to enter tumor stem cells and to multiply there. The viruses then destroyed the infected cells. In a separate case, a similar approach was successfully used with smallpocks viruses, modified for a vaccine.
Fighting tuberculosis with rats
In March 2014, DW visited a promising project in the fight against tuberculosis in Tanzania. There, medics use giant pouched rats to detect TB in samples from children. The animals are well-known for their good sense of smell and have in the past also been trained as sniffer dogs for landmines. Now they can help starting treatment early - preventing the spread of the bacteria.
Airplane-fuel produced by the sun
Visionary airplane designers from Bauhaus Luftfahrt announced in April that airplane fuel can be produced from carbon dioxide and water with the help of solar energy. The EU-funded project, which includes the Airbus company, managed to use a redox reaction to first produce a synthesis gas, which was then refined into a liquid fuel.
Computer behaves like a human
Even computers can pretend to be human. Programmers provided proof of that, during a competition at the University of Reading in June. They presented a computer in a live chat with human counterparts, who did not know whom they were chatting with. Only one third of the humans had doubts that they were actually communicating with another living being.
Adding letters to the DNA
In early May, biochemists reported in "Nature" that they managed to extend the DNA double helix of Echerichia-Coli-bacteria by two letters each. Effectively, they had altered the building blocks of life. The researchers hope that the method could one day help in finding new antibiotics. 2015 will see further research on the topic.
Artificial blood
Scottish researchers are convinced that they have come a step further in the production of artificial blood. At the Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, they managed to multiply red blood cells by using adult stem cells as a basis. They now hope that with cultured pluripotent stem cells, the method could forge a path for mass production of blood.
Breakthrough in the fight against HIV?
At the World-AIDS-Conference in Melbourne in July, Danish researchers reported that they managed to lure HI-Viruses out of their hiding places within cells using the cancer medicine Romidepsin. The hope is that now activated viruses could become visible and thus vulnerable for the immune system.
Nobel Prizes: For better microscopes...
The Inventors of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, William E. Moerner, Stefan Hell and Eric Betzig, received the Nobel Prize for chemistry. They broke through a theoretical barrier of optical microscopy. It was assumed that it is impossible to see anything smaller than 200 nanometers, but the researchers made smaller structures visible by switching specific molecules on and off.
...white light emitting diodes...
Shuji Nakamura, Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano received the Nobel Prize in Physics. They had invented LEDs that emitted blue light - a precondition for the later invention of white and warm-white LEDs. The breakthrough came only in the 1990s. Since then LED-Lamps have conquered the market by storm.
...and the navigation system in the brain
Edvard and May-Britt Moser received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of a GPS-like orientation system in the brain. They found specific brain cells in mice that register a pattern of spacial surroundings. Other cells are clearly responsible for reconizing and memorizing borders, like walls. And there are cells that provide orientation when we are turning our heads.
Hopes for an Ebola vaccine in 2015
2014 ended on a note of hope: a vaccine may be soon ready for the battle against the Ebola virus, which had claimed over 7,500 lives by late December of last year. The vaccine, which works against the two common types of Ebola, passed a Phase-1 Study. It showed little side effects. A combined phase-2 and -3-study is ready to start early this year.