Pradel Lab

Wonderful talk by Alliyah Byrd on FHR-1 deficiency in malaria-infected children at the EMCHD2024 in Lübeck!

Juliane Saßmannshausen hat ihre Promotion erfolgreich am 26.6.2024 abgeschlossen. Das ZAI gratuliert herzlich.

A new pic from the group!

Celebrating Gabi's 54th birthday in the lab.

Praktikum "Biologie für Humanmedizinstudierende" 2024 erfolgreich abgeschlossen - Vielen Dank an das Team und unsere Hiwis! 😄🤩🥳

- Discrimination in evaluation procedures pushes mothers out of academia and stymies their scientific careers. Researcher-mums fight back by founding initiatives like Parent in Science Movement. or Mothers in Science.

Academia needs radical change — mothers are ready to pave the way The research system must lose its overly rigid attitude towards career progression — and mothers are uniting to make that happen.

Altweiber 2024 in der Fachgruppe Biologie!

- The UK is currently facing a measles outbreak after eliminating the disease in 2017. Declining vaccination rates due to the pandemic and anti-vaccine messaging are key drivers of the spread of this highly contagious respiratory virus. Other countries also see concerning rises, with particularly Europe facing an alarming situation with a 45-fold increase in measles cases compared to 2022.

Measles outbreaks cause alarm: what the data say A drastic rise in infections in the United Kingdom and Europe follows a drop in vaccine uptake.

- Archaeogeneticists discovered the oldest evidence of Treponema pallidum, the bacterium that causes syphilis, in the bones of people who lived on the eastern coast of South America nearly 2,000 years ago. This discovery casts doubt on the theory that Columbus's crew brought syphilis to Europe, but suggests that T. pallidum has been around for 14,000 years. Treponemal diseases may have emerged in Eurasia or Africa and reached the Americas with the first humans to migrate there.

Syphilis microbe’s family has plagued humans for millennia Ancient DNA recovered from Brazilian remains shows that treponemal diseases originated some 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.

- Recently discovered ancient insects trapped in Lebanese amber, dating back 125 million years, challenge the belief that only female mosquitoes feed on blood. Scientists discovered male mosquitoes with elongated mouthparts covered in tiny toothlike bristles, suggesting they once drank blood. The finding questions the long-standing idea that mosquitoes and their biting relatives evolved from plant-eating ancestors, proposing that these ancient male mosquitoes may have originally been bloodsuckers, with the function later being forgotten during evolution.

The earliest fossil mosquito Female mosquitoes are among the most notorious blood-feeding insects, sometimes causing severe allergic responses or vectoring a variety of microbial …

- Im vergangenen Jahr meldeten Arbeitnehmende unter 30 Jahren so viele Krankentage wie nie zuvor. Besonders auffällig war der kontinuierliche Anstieg von Arbeitsunfähigkeitstagen aufgrund seelischer Beschwerden, wobei Angststörungen, Belastungsstörungen und depressive Störungen bei der Generation Z signifikant zunehmen. Insbesondere in Zeiten des Fachkräftemangels ist es für Unternehmen wichtig, die Gesundheit ihrer jungen Mitarbeitenden sowohl körperlich als auch seelisch zu fördern.

Generation Z: Junge Beschäftigte fallen immer häufiger aus Im vergangenen Jahr haben unter 30-jährige Arbeitnehmer so viele Krankenscheine eingereicht wie nie zuvor. Vor allem die Zahl der Fehltage wegen seelischer Beschwerden nahm zu.

- Beware of the gender brain gap: More than 50,000 human brain-imaging articles have been published since the 1990s. However, less than 0.5% of these studies focus on health factors specific to women, despite women constituting the majority of individuals affected by conditions like Alzheimer's and depression. This gender brain gap correlates with 80% of tenured neuroscientists being men, and leads to a lack of research and funding directed towards understanding the impact of health factors, particularly hormonal influences, on women's brains.

Only 0.5% of neuroscience studies look at women’s health. Here’s how to change that A new initiative challenges the severe neglect of women’s brain health from puberty through to pregnancy and menopause.

Absolvent*innenfeier der RWTH Fachgruppe Biologie: Herzlichen Glückwunsch an unsere ZAI Absolvent*innen 2023. 🥂🍾🎉

Check out this Nature survey: Postdocs in their thirties are increasingly frustrated by the lack of stability, uncertain future prospects and too many sacrifices. Careers in academia are less and less attractive. This is particularly true in Germany due to the increasing contract restrictions and lack of permanent positions for scientists.

Falling behind: postdocs in their thirties tire of putting life on hold Temporary contracts, low salaries and cost-of-living hikes force many researchers to put off parenthood and other big decisions.

The Pradel lab celebrates the successful re-evaluation of the DFG priority programme SPP 2225. 🍾🥂

ICW2023 in Newcastle: Timo Reiss hielt einen spannenden Vortrag über die Auswirkung von Komplementdefizienz auf die Malariapathologie.

Everyone: Remember this old classic? - Got this bad project.

Zheng Lab - Bad Project (Lady Gaga parody) *edit* We are the Hui Zheng lab at BCM and study Alzheimer's Disease. Thanks everyone for your comments and words of encouragement! We had no idea this would...

It is World Malaria Day! Check out our Malaria Blog at

scicom The world malaria report 2022 of the world health organization (WHO) states that in 2021 an estimated 247 million people were infected with malaria in 84 countries around the world with a death toll of about 619 000 people. Despite huge efforts in the eradication of the disease and constant dropping...

The big April birthday lunch at the Pradel lab. 🍾🥂🎂

Die zweite Kohorte hat erfolgreich das Praktikum "Biologie für Humanmedizinstudierende" absolviert. Vielen Dank an die Hiwis und das Team für ihren tollen Einsatz. 😘

Die vorerst letzte Kolumne Wissensdrang: Burnout an den Universitäten.

Leider wahr: Die Academia brennt aus, doch die Universitäten verschließen die Augen.

Fed up and burnt out: ‘quiet quitting’ hits academia

Fed up and burnt out: ‘quiet quitting’ hits academia Many researchers dislike the term, but the practice of dialling back unrewarded duties is gaining traction.

Praktikum Biologie für Humanmedizinstudierende: Die ersten 140 Studierenden haben das Praktikum erfolgreich beendet. Unser großer Dank geht an unsere Hiwis 😘.

Die neue Kolumne Wissensdrang: Kollateralschaden - Wie unsere Ministerien gentechnische Vorhaben blockieren.