Gene regulation - 20/07/2021

The many faces of the epigenetic regulator MOF

Epigenetic modifications play a crucial role in coordinated gene transcription, and are required for a fertilised egg cell to be able to develop into an organism with different cell types. Dr. Asifa Akhtar from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg has been studying the essential epigenetic regulator protein MOF for 20 years.

Article - 22/06/2021

Using virtual reality in the clinic to rehabilitate patients with cognitive disorders

Outdated and inadequate methods of neurological rehabilitation are still being used for patients with neurological diseases or injuries – and what’s more, the treatment is usually too late. This is because cognitive training is especially important in the critical phases when the brain is particularly plastic. The Heidelberg-based company living brain proves that early treatment is possible using an extremely innovative method – with concentrated…

Article - 31/05/2021

Tracking down tumour-associated pain in pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer comes along quietly: unnoticed for a long time, it often triggers excruciating pain as the tumour progresses. This pain is associated with cancer cells invading pancreatic nerves. Dr. Michael Hirth from Mannheim University Hospital has shed some light on the complex communication between cancer cells and nerve cells. His findings could eventually be used for personalised pain therapies.

Article - 08/07/2021

Individual operation risk assessment by the Cognitive Medical Assistant

Despite modern surgical techniques and anaesthetic procedures, serious complications can occur during surgical interventions. An interdisciplinary team at Heidelberg University Hospital has launched a project called the Cognitive Medical Assistant (German: Der Kognitive Medizinische Assistant, KoMed for short), designed to better assess the individual risk of these interventions. The project’s goal is to systematically and comprehensively analyse…

Brain tumor cells with a certain common mutation reprogram invading immune cells. This leads to the paralysis of the body's immune defense against the tumor in the brain. Researchers from Heidelberg, Mannheim, and Freiburg discovered this mechanism and at the same time identified a way of reactivating the paralyzed immune system to fight the tumor.

Genetically enhancing a patient's immune cells by adding therapeutic genes to them outside the body is regarded as a promising new treatment approach in oncology. However, the production of these therapeutic cells using viruses is not only expensive but time-consuming. Researchers at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have developed an innovative non-viral vector that can efficiently introduce therapeutic genes into immune cells.

The bacterium Staphylococcus epidermidisis primarily a harmless microbe found on the skin and in the noses of humans. Yet some strains of this species can cause infections – in catheters, artificial joints, heart valves, and in the bloodstream – which are difficult to treat. These bacteria are often resistant to a particularly effective antibiotic, methicillin, and are among the most feared germs in hospitals.

The working group around Dr. Philipp Rathert at the Institute for Biochemistry and Technical Biochemistry investigates the regulation of epigenetic networks of certain cancers and ways of treating them. The working group published its new findings in April.

Atriva Therapeutics GmbH, a company that is pioneering the development of therapies for the treatment of viral infections, has secured up to €11.4 million in federal funding. The company, founded in 2015, announced today that it was selected for research funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Atriva will use the funds to advance its drug ATR-002 towards market maturity as quickly as possible.

Signal mechanisms in inflammatory processes - 18/05/2021

Newly discovered substances activate the inflammasome in macrophages

Low-grade chronic inflammation caused by components of the innate immune system may increase the risk of developing a variety of diseases in the long term. In their search for the signalling mechanisms underlying these inflammatory processes, Prof. Dr. Olaf Groß' research group at the Freiburg University Medical Centre discovered new active substances with immunostimulatory properties that may open up additional possibilities in cancer…

Effective drugs for the treatment of diseases of the central nervous system do exist. However, the blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain as the body's control center, makes it especially difficult for therapeutic biomolecules to pass through. Thus, researchers from an international consortium coordinated by the Fraunhofer IGB have spent the last four and a half years developing a novel system in the EU project "N2B-patch"…

For the first time, scientists from the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) partner site in Essen/Düsseldorf have discovered stem cells of the hematopoietic system in glioblastomas, the most aggressive form of brain tumor. These hematopoietic stem cells promote division of the cancer cells and at the same time suppress the immune response against the tumor.

Which neurons in the brain mediate fear responses - and how do they flip the switch when the danger is over? The research team of Prof. Ingrid Ehrlich at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomolecular Systems (IBBS), Department of Neurobiology studies these questions. Their latest results obtained in collaboration with scientists at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel (Switzerland), the National Institute of Health (USA), and Innsbruck…

The Deep-Tech Start-Up memetis GmbH from Germany, which produces the world’s most compact and lightest commercially available valves driven by shape memory alloys, announces a new partnership with Fluid-o-Tech S.r.l., an Italian innovation and market leader in the field of fluid-pumps.

CureVac N.V. (Nasdaq: CVAC), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of transformative medicines based on messenger ribonucleic acid (“mRNA”), today announced results of the second interim analysis of its international pivotal Phase 2b/3 study in approximatively 40,000 subjects (the HERALD study) of CureVac’s first-generation COVID-19 vaccine candidate, CVnCoV.

Scientists from the EMBL and the German Cancer Research Center have presented a new method for generating metabolic profiles of individual cells. The method, which combines fluorescence microscopy and a specific form of mass spectroscopy, can analyze over a hundred metabolites and lipids from more than a thousand individual cells per hour. Researchers expect the method to better answer a variety of biomedical questions in the future.

Through a complex, self-reinforcing feedback mechanism, colorectal cancer cells make room for their own expansion by driving surrounding healthy intestinal cells to death - while simultaneously fueling their own growth. This feedback loop is driven by an activator of the innate immune system. Researchers from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the University of Heidelberg discovered this mechanism in the intestinal tissue of fruit…

Digitalisation - 04/08/2021

Eye check for all - quick and easy thanks to artificial intelligence

Many eye diseases are already easily treatable, if they are detected in time. But waiting months for an ophthalmologist’s appointment seems to be the norm - that is, if you can get to see a specialist at all. The Tübingen-based start-up eye2you wants to improve this situation: it has developed a mobile retinal examination device involving a smartphone and AI. It can be used by family doctors, diabetologists and nursing staff and thus help to…

Workplace of the future - 10/08/2021

Intelligent body support system for surgery staff

Operating room staff often spend hours in strenuous postures, which has a significant impact on concentration and quality of work. While operating room equipment is increasingly networked, state-of-the-art medical technology, conditions for operating room staff trail way behind. The start-up company Hellstern medical offers an effective solution for serious pain, fatigue and incorrect interventions.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the commonest cause of blindness in developed countries affecting seven million in total in Germany, from which 500,000 people are suffering from late stage disease, around half of whom are registered as visually impaired. There are two forms of AMD, ‘wet’ and ‘dry’. There are currently no treatments available for the dry form of the disease (geographic atrophy).

Under certain conditions, our immune system can efficiently fight off infectious diseases and cancer. T cells, especially the gamma delta T cell type, play an important role in this. The issue is that this cell type is extremely infrequent in the human body. Researchers at the University Hospital Tübingen, the University of Heidelberg and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have now succeeded in finding the cause for the formation of…

The risk of colorectal cancer can be predicted more accurately by determining seven blood-based micro-RNAs (miRNAs) than by using traditional methods - and can be done so many years before a diagnosis is made. In a current study, researchers from the German Cancer Research Center and the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg show that miRNA profiles provide greater predictive accuracy than genetic or lifestyle-based risk…

Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center and Heidelberg University Hospital have for the first time been able to delay the development of hereditary colorectal cancer with a protective vaccination. Mice with a hereditary predisposition to colorectal cancer survived significantly longer after vaccination than unvaccinated animals. Combining the vaccination with an anti-inflammatory drug increased the protective effect.

New drugs are intended to help stop viral zoonoses – infections that jump from animals to humans. To study suitable inhibitors, Prof. Dr Christian Klein from the Institute of Pharmacy and Molecular Biotechnology (IPMB) of Heidelberg University is receiving funding in the amount of 450,000 euros from the Volkswagen Foundation.

To diagnose an infection with the coronavirus, usually a throat swab is taken and genetic viral material detected by using a highly sensitive PCR. To date, more than 65 million of these tests have been performed in Germany alone. Due to the massive increase in testing worldwide and simultaneous loss of production, there was a significant shortage of test materials in the early stage of the pandemic.