News and Press

A molecular fountain of youth for the brain

What happens in the brain as we age? Might it be at all possible to rejuvenate nerve cells? Seeking answers to these questions, a research group led by Frank Edenhofer at the Department of Molecular Biology has succeeded for the first time in observing mini-brains age.

New mass spectrometer for biomolecular research

Researchers at the Department of Organic Chemistry and the Center for Molecular Biosciences (CMBI), led by Kathrin Breuker, have been awarded funding for a state-of-the-art mass spectrometer in a competitive FFG infrastructure call. The instrument will open up new possibilities for biomolecular research at the University of Innsbruck.

New chemistry for the engineering of covalent RNA complexes

Researchers from the University of Innsbruck have developed a new method for covalently labeling RNA in the cell. In the journal Nature Chemical Biology, they show how it can be used to map RNA movements in the cell.

Illuminating the Undruggable: Empowering Drug Discovery

KinCon biolabs, a spin-off from the University of Innsbruck, is expanding its patented platform technology to support pharmaceutical companies in addressing medical challenges, particularly in the fields of cancer and Parkinson's disease. Recent funding from the FFG has enabled the launch of the R&D project “Seek & Destroy”, aimed at leveraging the company’s technology to advance the emerging field of targeted protein degradation.

New multimodal signature could predict immunotherapy success

An international team of researchers led by Francesca Finotello from the Digital Science Center (DiSC) and Department of Molecular Biology has derived a molecular signature from tumour transcriptomics data that quantifies the main sources of heterogeneity in the tumour microenvironment. This innovative signature, which the researchers call iHet, offers deeper insights into patients’ responses to immunotherapy and could improve cancer treatments.

New biomarker predicts success of immunotherapy in kidney cancer

Immunotherapy increases survival rates in kidney cancer, but does not work for everyone. A Leuven research team developed a new method to predict which patients will benefit from it. The team of Francesca Finotello (Computational Biomedicine Group) from the University of Innsbruck also contributed. Their study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, also opens new avenues to even more effective treatments.

RNA-drug interactions

How active compounds affect RNA and thus the expression of genes is of great interest for the development of potential therapeutics. Innsbruck chemists have now used a method they recently developed to study the binding of the aminoglycoside Neomycin B to a so-called mRNA riboswitch.

A new strategy enables molecular diversity

The research group led by chemist Thomas Magauer has accomplsihed a divergent strategy to synthesize nine complex natural compounds. The developed method requires significantly less time and results in a variety of compounds with different structures and biological properties.