Diagnostics

Alithea Biotechnology GmbH - 12/02/2026

Intelligent immunotherapy – safety ensured

Immunological cell fingerprints are Alithea Bio’s core expertise. The Freiburg-based company combines advanced molecular biology with cutting-edge IT and operates one of the world’s largest immunopeptidomics databases. Alithea Bio leverages this integrated platform to offer both contract research services and software-as-a-service solutions to develop safer and more precise personalised immunotherapies more quickly.

nanodiag BW has received approval from the BMFTR for a further three-year implementation phase under the Clusters4Future initiative. With the approval of €15 million, the innovation network will be able to continue its work on nanopore-based diagnostic methods seamlessly from April 2026 onwards. The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and Tourism is supporting the cluster management through accompanying measures.

Recreating tumour tissue in the laboratory as realistically as possible and developing new approaches for personalised cancer medicine: A total of 20 doctoral students in the life sciences and ten Medicine students will be researching this in the new "Organoid-Based mOdelling of Solid Tumours" research training group. They want to gain a better understanding of cancer and better predict the course of the disease and the effect of…

Hummingbird Diagnostics GmbH, a pioneer in harnessing blood-based small RNAs for early disease detection and characterization, today announced the publication of a new study in Nature Communications Medicine introducing an Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT)-based method for detecting small RNA modifications in blood.

Artificial intelligence: opportunities for healthcare - 06/11/2025

More than just deskwork: opportunities and obstacles for generative AI in healthcare

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has enormous potential in healthcare, ranging from automating time-consuming deskwork to supporting diagnoses. It is not just for the big players; there are also cost-effective ways for smaller companies and institutions to utilize GenAI.

Researchers have developed a new method that greatly improves the accuracy of brain-state classification with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The brain-imaging technique fNIRS allows researchers to measure neural activity: Active brain cells need more oxygen, so variations in blood flow and oxygen saturation indicate which brain regions are at work. fNIRS detects these changes safely and without invasive procedures.

The nationwide OnkoAktiv network, founded at the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) in Heidelberg, has been awarded the Baden-Württemberg Cancer Innovation Prize 2025. The prize recognizes OnkoAktiv for its pioneering role and groundbreaking contribution to the integration of exercise into oncological care.

Federal government awards 3.5 million euros in funding to the collaborative research project FLU-PREP. Researchers are developing methods to identify the pandemic potential of new viruses at an early stage.

The Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) is supporting the “Sleep-Neuro-Path” research network with around 1.6 million euros. Coordinated by the Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH) in Mannheim, a team of scientists is investigating the role of sleep-related biomarkers in the development of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

Until today, the aggressiveness of prostate cancer has been assessed primarily using the Gleason grading system—an analysis of cancer tissue in a pathology laboratory that is highly subjective. An international research team led by the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) has now developed a novel, explainable AI model that aims to make the diagnosis of prostate cancer more transparent and less susceptible to error.

Medical image analysis - 25/09/2025

Powerful AI systems using synthetic training data

AI systems for image analysis are only as good as the data on which they are trained. The Göppingen-based start-up MIRA Vision has developed a novel method for generating synthetic, photorealistic images, enabling the efficient creation of large, high-quality training datasets. An intuitive platform also allows researchers to evaluate microscopy images with ease.

Why is blood cancer particularly aggressive in some patients? Researchers at Ulm University Hospital have characterised a mutation in the so-called NOTCH1 gene that significantly influences the prognosis of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). Remarkably, this mutation is located in the non-coding region of the gene – an area of DNA long considered less relevant for disease mechanisms.