Selected press releases

Prof. Dr. Halbritter has served as the new Medical Director of the Department of Nephrology at the Medical Center – University of Freiburg since April 2026. With his expertise, he is enhancing care for patients with kidney disease: The goal is to prevent kidney failure through early diagnosis and the implementation of strategies to slow disease progression. For cases where kidney failure has already occurred, the focus is on organ replacement.

Not only actual chronological age, but also individual aging at the molecular level is a key factor in the development of cancer. This was discovered by scientists at the DKFZ and the Saarland Cancer Registry. If the so-called “epigenetic clocks” indicate accelerated biological aging, the likelihood of a cancer diagnosis increases. This finding could help identify at-risk groups and make early detection screenings more targeted

A novel biomimetic tissue substitute combines precisely tunable mechanical properties with biological functionality and is now ready for applications in medical technology. The material was developed in the »PolyKARD« project by Fraunhofer IAP and the NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute. From 20.-24.04, 2026, the material will be presented together with further developments at the Hannover Messe, Fraunhofer joint booth.

Estrogen does more than regulate reproduction — it helps brain cells handle stress. When levels decline after menopause, this ability is reduced, and these hormonal changes are believed to contribute to the increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease in women. MPI-IE researcher María José Pérez Jiménez has received the Klaus Tschira Boost Fund to investigate why — and whether these cellular responses can be restored.​

How can you charge electric cars without plugging them into the power grid for hours on end? How can industrial robots be “refueled” during operation? And how does wireless energy transfer improve medical technology? These questions have occupied Prof. Nejila Parspour, Director of the Institute of Electrical Energy Conversion (IEW) at the University of Stuttgart, for more than twenty years.

Chronic infections cause long-term changes in key immune cells. T helper cells suppress their immune function to ensure their survival. New targets for vaccines and cancer immunotherapies.

Europe’s dependence on fossil fuels is not only making the continent economically and politically vulnerable, it also has consequences for the population’s health. Growing air pollution, heat damage and the climate-related spread of infectious diseases are looming, warns the 2026 Europe Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, which its co-directors are about to present to the public.

A recent study published in the European Respiratory Journal provides important new insights into the early identification and monitoring of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The focus is on airway wall thickness as an imaging marker for structural remodeling processes in the lungs.

A team of researchers from the Department of Integrative Evolutionary Biology at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen has discovered that vitamin B12 plays a key role in transmitting behavioural memories across generations. The study shows for the first time how a nutrient from the diet can, without altering the genome, influence behaviour over multiple generations.

Desmoplastic small- and round-cell tumor is rare, aggressive, and difficult to treat. Researchers at the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have comprehensively analyzed 30 tumors and identified potential personalized treatment options for nearly all patients. In some patients, new targeted approaches were able to halt the disease for a surprisingly long time.

Can Aztekin and his team have discovered how oxygen-sensing explains why amphibians regenerate limbs and mammals do not.

For over a decade, a class of drugs called BET inhibitors has been tested in cancer trials with high expectations. The biology looked promising. Many cancers depend on oncogenes that (BET) proteins help activate, so blocking BET proteins should slow tumor growth. In the lab, it often did. In patients, results were mostly disappointing: limited responses, significant side effects, and no clear way to predict which tumors would respond at all.