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 E-Mail IMAGE: Mariko Onodera and Jan Meyer perform an experiment with potassium-sensitive microelectrodes in the Institute of Neurobiology at HHU. view more  Credit: HHU / Institute of Neurobiology During epileptic seizures, a large number of nerve cells in the brain fire excessively and in synchrony. This hyperactivity may lead to uncontrolled shaking of the body and involve periods of loss of consciousness. While about two thirds of patients respond to anti-epileptic medication, th...

 E-Mail The most promising vaccine against the coronavirus to date is also an example of the long-term value of curiosity-driven basic research and its funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation). The so-called mRNA vaccine platform, which the Mainz-based company BioNTech uses in its Covid-19 vaccine developed jointly with the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer, can be traced back to preliminary work carried out from 2006 to 2008 in a project within a DFG-fun...