Healthcare industry

Immune cells sometimes kick over the traces. This could lead to allergic reactions. At the Freiburg Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology a group of researchers led by Professor Michael Huber is investigating the mechanisms that can prevent this from happening.

The company Rentschler from Laupheim in the south of Germany is nowadays one of the biggest biopharmaceutical contract manufacturers in Europe. This has not always been the case. A look at the companys history shows why the company which is nowadays run by the third family generation has become what it is today.

Article - 28/04/2008

A milestone in the treatment of leukaemia

Blood cancer experts in the team of Professor Peter Dreger Head of the Section of Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation at the University Hospital of Heidelberg have achieved a major success in the treatment of leukaemia. For the 500th time the physicians from the Department of Haematology Oncology and Rheumatology transferred blood stem cells from a healthy donor to a patient suffering from leukaemia or lymphoma.

Burst bark mucus secretions blackened leaves crop failures - these all represent huge ecological and economic damage and are known as fire blight. Fire blight is an example of how global trade and traffic leads to the spread of a pathogen across almost the entire world.

Article - 26/04/2008

Science TV on the trail of the predatory crustacean Dikerogammarus villosus

Science TV enables scientists to provide insights into their research activities. Limnologists at the University of Constance are participating. With an underwater camera they dive into Lake Constance looking for invasive animal species.

In conjunction with reference laboratories of the World Health Organization WHO medtech company Curetis AG is developing new technologies and products that identify the pathogens of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and their resistance. The solutions are impressive.

Organisers and more than 300 participants were very enthusiastic about the European BioFine life sciences congress recently held in Freiburg. Four different life sciences conferences were organised . Freiburg will also host BioFine 2009.

Aerated stirred tank reactors have virtually become a standard piece of equipment in bioprocess engineering. No other bioprocess engineering bioreactor is as versatile meaning that significant time- and cost savings are made.

Dossier - 24/04/2008

Contract manufacture: the order books remain full

The market for therapeutic proteins is continuing to grow in double figures. Current estimates of the total market value are in the range of 60 to 70 billion US dollars and the market is estimated to grow by 13 per cent p.a. up until 2010. Biopharmaceutical contract manufacturers have established themselves on the market and market observers estimate that the number of biopharmaceutical medicines will grow from 100 2005 to approx. 150 until 2010.

Scientists from Mannheim Heidelberg an Freiburg working together in the cooperative research area Vascular Biology have developed a method that can be used to create a human vascular system in mice which stays functional even after several months.

Since autumn 2007 Constance has been one of Germanys Elite Universities. UNI-ZEITUNG spoke with Prof. Dr. Andreas Marx spokesperson for the Department of Chemistry and head of the winning Chemical Biology graduate school about the practical consequences.

Project partners in developing countries will from now on be able to receive DFG funding.

People with know-how must bear responsibility said the microbiologist Dr. Kilian Hennes who lectures bioprocess engineering at Constance University of Applied Sciences HTWG. Teaching is one of the major challenges for the experienced scientist and practitioner in particular because his discipline is seen as somewhat exotic by future process engineers and requires a different way of looking at things. But this is what makes his job truly…

Some 30000 chemicals currently in use have to be pre-registered at the ECHA between 1st June and 1st December 2008.

Baden-Württemberg universities have adapted their healthcare training and education to different requirements and a number of different specialised courses are on offer.

Professor Dr. Andreas Schier the scientific supervisor of the project is complying with the request of the Universitys executive board and the University council to abandon his project.

Article - 20/04/2008

varionostic develops test systems for tumour markers

The Ulm-based company varionostic GmbH has received a research grant from the German Ministry of Economics and Technology. Details on the level of the grant were not disclosed. The company will research tumour markers and develop detection systems for DNA methylations.

The European Commission adopted a Recommendation on the management of intellectual property in knowledge transfer activities of universities and other public research organisations. European organisations lag behind their North America counterparts.

Almost half of the veins transplanted to restore blood flow in the heart become clogged again within ten years after surgery. Gene therapy pre-treatment of the vein fragments that prevents the muscle cells from entering the vascular wall might decrease the risk of this happening.

The GABI-PRECISE consortium which originates from the Genome Analysis of the Plant Biological System GABI initiative has announced a cooperative project on the introduction of gene targeting in barley.

It began as a service laboratory for DNA sequencing and within a few years became a worldwide network of highly specialised biotech companies for molecular biology products. Investments in platform technologies play a key role in this development. Since then the team at Stuttgart-based BioLux GmbH has found that the production of antibodies is its highest revenue business activity.

Professor Roland Schuele from the University Womens Hospital in Freiburg originally studied biochemistry. Nowadays Schuele is researching the development of prostate cancer. During his scientific career he has learnt that research cannot be steered in a particular direction. It develops and we follow it said Schuele who has been able to gain astonishing insights into the molecular processes in tumour cells.

Researchers at the German Cancer Research Center have discovered a key molecule that is responsible for the immature structure of blood vessels in malignant tumors. If this molecule is switched off in mice vessels normalize so that immune cells are better able to get to the tumor tissue.

The neurogeneticists in the group of Professor Karl-Friedrich Fischbach at the University of Freiburg are investigating how the complex optical areas of the brain are organised. They found that proteins form a functional unit.

The moral theologian from Freiburg Eberhard Schockenhoff is a self-styled protector of life but so is the stem cell researcher Marcel Leist from the University of Constance. The two men clashed at a recent debate on the use of embryonic stem cells.