Healthcare industry

Press release - 05/08/2009

New test for safer biomedical research results

In biomedical research with living cells in the culture dish, contamination with bacteria, viruses or other fast-growing cells is always a problem. Scientists of the German Cancer Research Centre (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) have now developed a test system for the fast and cost-effective detection of such contaminations. The new method will contribute to making biomedical research results safer and reproducible.

Article - 04/08/2009

Wilfried Weber recombines new cell constituents

Prof. Dr. Wilfried Weber who was appointed professor of synthetic biology at the Centre for Biological Signalling Studies bioss at the University of Freiburg in May 2009 has always had a great interest in the practical application of biology. Weber and his team have a thorough understanding of how different parts of signalling networks can be reassembled for specific purposes for example switching off the antibiotic resistance of bacteria.

Chronic inflammatory lung diseases like chronic bronchitis and emphysema are a major global health problem, and the fourth leading cause of death and disability in developed countries, with smoking accounting for 90% of the risk for developing them. Work by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and its Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit (MMPU) with the University of Heidelberg, Germany, has shed new light on the…

Press release - 03/08/2009

An investment in the future is being made at the University of Constance

A few weeks ago the Max Planck Society approved the establishment of a new International Max Planck Research School IMPRS for Organismal Biology at the Excellence University of Constance. The International Research School will be established in order to investigate the complex interactions between the organism and environment as well as between organisms.

The INTERREG programme of the European Union will provide funding for a liver disease research project conducted by the Department of Internal Medicine II at the Freiburg University Medical Centre. The “Hepato-Regio-Net” will receive a total of one million euro in funding for a period of three years. Prof. Dr. Robert Thimme, executive senior physician in the Department of Medicine, will serve as the project’s spokesperson and Dr. Richard Fischer,…

After a successful start of the 2009 business year, Boehringer Ingelheim is expecting their sales growth to outpace the world pharmaceutical market; for the tenth time in succession. As announced by this second-largest German pharmaceuticals producer, the company posted growth in local currency (+ 8.3 per cent) over the previous year in the first six months of 2009. Net sales amounted to 6,388 million euro.

Article - 30/07/2009

Tikanis GmbH Freiburg – flexible modelling and planning software

Experiments in modern cell biological laboratories or the scheduling and task management of rehab clinics – all of this leads to a flood of data, which needs to be organised and analysed. The Freiburg-based start-up company Tikanis GmbH offers innovative and inexpensive software solutions for modellers of dynamic processes, clinical researchers or therapists. The founders of the company, Dr. Thomas Maiwald and Julie Blumberg, are well aware of…

Article - 30/07/2009

Keeping as many valuable attachments as possible

The goal of many projects focusing on the purification of recombinant proteins is to rapidly and effectively remove substances and side products that would compromise the quality and quantity of biopharmaceutical compounds. A consortium of industrial and scientific partners is currently focusing on a different step in the biopharmaceutical production process: the goal is to keep as many as possible of the drugs’ ‘attachments’. The project focuses…

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved funding for a new research project at the Universities of Freiburg and Heidelberg. The researchers are working on improving our understanding of the mechanisms that lead to chronic virus infections: how do hepatitis viruses manage to evade immunological defence reactions and survive in the organism without damaging the organism?

Dossier - 30/07/2009

Downstream processing: bottleneck purification process

The fermentation processes that are used by biopharmaceutical manufacturers have shown to lead to increasing quantities of therapeutic proteins. However this increase in turn leads to capacity bottlenecks in the subsequent purification process known as downstream processing and is associated with high costs. Downstream processing comprises up to 80 per cent of the entire production costs. Producers are increasingly recognising the present need…

The INTEREG IV B programmes are financial instruments of the European Union designed to support the European-wide cooperation between small- and medium-sized companies, research institutions and government authorities. A meeting held on 22nd July 2009 in Heilbronn provided special information on the programme, with a special focus on the cooperation between North-West and Central Europe.

Article - 30/07/2009

Dragnet investigation for substance killers

The Ulm-based company Labor Dr. Merk Kollegen with over 40 employees is a specialist company identifying foreign bodies such as viruses bacteria and toxins in biopharmaceuticals and medical products. In addition the medium-sized company has been developing producing and marketing diagnostics for medical use for almost 40 years.

Article - 29/07/2009

Protein crystallisation: an attractive alternative to protein purification

The production of pure crystals is a method that is normally used for the determination of the spatial structure of a protein using X-ray defraction. Crystalline proteins have a very regular structure, meaning that contaminations can to a large extent be excluded. Therefore, protein crystals only contain a small number of foreign substances, which makes them a lot more stable in solution than proteins are. Due to the aforementioned properties,…

Press release - 29/07/2009

Second roundtable discussions dealing with plant genetics

“Today, we have made good progress. The talks were very focused and intensive,” said the German Federal Research Minister Annette Schavan, summarising what had been achieved at the second green genetic engineering roundtable in Berlin attended by invited representatives from science, the agricultural and food industries, environmental associations and churches.

On July the 22nd of 2009, the European Commission adopted concrete proposals to tackle Alzheimer’s disease, dementias and other neurodegenerative conditions. These shared health and social challenges in Europe call for coordinated actions to ensure efficient prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care for those affected.

Press release - 28/07/2009

New Forces for Protein Research

Heidelberg research institute EML Research is pleased to announce that as of July 15, Dr. Frauke Gräter will be group leader of a newly established research group called “Molecular Biomechanics“. The 32 year old chemist has been junior research group leader jointly at the Bioquant, University of Heidelberg, and the MPG-CAS Partner Institute for Computational Biology (PICB), Shanghai, since 2007. Before that, she had worked at Columbia University,…

Press release - 28/07/2009

New trachea made from human tissue

A team of doctors from the Schillerhöhe Hospital, which is part of the Robert Bosch Hospital in Stuttgart, in cooperation with researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute of Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart, has developed a method that enables artificially produced autologous tissue to be implanted into patients with severe tracheal injuries. The method involves the cultivation of extensive parts of the human trachea and…

Press release - 28/07/2009

Fostering enthusiasm for successful entrepreneurship

BioRegio STERN Management GmbH has honoured the winning projects in the regional “Science2Start” competition. A panel of experts awarded a total of 2,250 euros for the most innovative ideas with marketing potential. The winners celebrated their success with approx. 240 visitors of the annual summer event jointly organised by BioRegio STERN Management GmbH, the Society for the Promotion of Biotechnology Stuttgart/Tübingen/Neckar-Alb e.V. and PUSH!…

Nycomed announced that the European Commission has granted marketing authorisation for Instanyl its first-in-class intranasal fentanyl spray. Instanyl is aimed at managing breakthrough pain in adult cancer patients already receiving maintenance opioid therapy for chronic pain.

Press release - 23/07/2009

Michael Reth to receive Schering-Plough research prize

The spokesperson of the “bioss” excellence cluster has been awarded the EFIS-Schering-Plough European Immunology Prize for his research into immune cell signalling processes. The European Federation of Immunological Societies’ EFIS-Schering-Plough European Immunology Prize, which recognises individuals who have made an outstanding discovery in the field of immune research, has now been awarded for the second time.

Article - 23/07/2009

Making cancer cells commit suicide

They divide and divide, and no natural border can stop them. Tumours such as the Ewing sarcoma, a bone cancer that occurs predominantly in teenagers, grow incessantly, making treatment difficult. A few years ago, Prof. Dr. Udo Kontny and his team from the University Hospital in Freiburg discovered a way to stop the growth of this particular tumour by activating a switch on the surface of cells which induces cellular death. Can physicians learn to…

febit holding gmbh announced today the launch of the first human cancer biochip for HybSelectâ, febit’s highly automated technology for sequence capture, enabling targeted Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS). The new catalog cancer biochip features 115 important genes which are reported to be associated with common types of cancer by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

Press release - 23/07/2009

Mannheim Medical Centre – leading cancer laboratory and clinical research centre

Mannheim is the only medical centre in Germany to fulfil the criteria of an affiliated centre of EORTC. According to a recent EORTC report Mannheim is the only German centre that has fulfilled the organisations high quality criteria over the last three years.

Press release - 23/07/2009

“We wanted to change the world” – the success story of Genzyme

The CEO of Genzyme, Henri Termeer, explains how a young company, “which had no ideas” managed to become an internationally successful company with 11,000 employees in around 40 countries: “Ideas that other people think you are crazy to have, are usually the ideas that are the most successful.” The company's subsidiary in the city of Constance has 27 employees.

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has granted the Medical Hospital in Freiburg and the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg funding for a proposal applying to become one of the DFG’s 18 priority programmes in 2009.