Diagnostic tool for people with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis - 17/06/2025

Chronic inflammatory bowel disease - using an app to sustainably improve everyday life

Keeping appointments? Planning everyday life? For people living with chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), sudden and unpredictable flare-ups can severely limit their ability to participate in daily life. The start-up coreway aims to improve the quality of life for individuals affected by IBD by leveraging data-driven insights and contributing to the advancement of personalised medicine.

Sarcomas in soft tissue usually occur in young people and are difficult to treat. Due to a lack of laboratory models, the causes of their development are poorly understood. A team of researchers has now succeeded in creating mouse models with a functioning immune system that replicate sarcoma types that remain unstudied. The method opens up new avenues for the targeted development of immunotherapies for children and adolescents with sarcomas.

Textiles functionalized with antiviral agents are intended to reduce the risk of transmission of pathogens, particularly in a medical environment. These antiviral properties must be carefully tested and verified in laboratory tests. The biological testing laboratory of the German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research Denkendorf has examined antiviral activities with coronaviruses as part of a research project on textiles for infection control.

Colorectal cancer screening programs are currently underutilized in Germany. This also applies to testing for blood in the stool. The immunological stool tests can detect tiny amounts of blood in the stool. Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have investigated whether smartphone-based testing could be a meaningful alternative or supplement to traditional laboratory tests.

Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have shown in an international eye-tracking study that dermatologists not only improve their diagnostic accuracy by using explainable artificial intelligence, but also show significantly less fatigue when assessing challenging cases. The researchers were able to demonstrate this by measuring a reduction in cognitive stress indicators.

Tübingen achieves remarkable success and has good chance of maintaining its University of Excellence title – Top research in three areas to be sustained from other sources of support.

The reservoir of blood stem cells shrinks with age. It becomes increasingly dominated by stem cells that produce immune cells associated with chronic inflammation. Almost all of the 60-year-olds studied show this change. The new discovery could help explain the chronic inflammation that occurs with age and makes us more susceptible to disease. It could also help identify early warning signs of unhealthy aging processes.

Life-saving smartphone app delivers rapid help during cardiac arrest - 19/05/2025

Do smartphone-based first responder alerting systems increase the chances of survival in the event of cardiac arrest?

Every minute counts when the heart suddenly stops beating or pumps so weakly that the brain is no longer receiving enough oxygen. The HEROES trial, coordinated in Freiburg, is investigating whether the survival rate of patients requiring out-of-hospital resuscitation improves when qualified first responders are alerted via the ‘Region of Lifesavers’ app - enabling them to begin high-quality resuscitation measures as early as possible.

VDI Guideline 5708 “Bioprinting, methods and definitions”: What sounds technical and sober at first glance is an important step forward in the future field of 3D bioprinting. The guideline was developed under Dr. Hanna Hartmann from the NMI in Reutlingen and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Groll from the University Hospital of Würzburg. It creates a binding, practical basis for reproducible and quality-assured bioprinting procedures.

Medulloblastomas, childhood brain tumors in children, are thought to develop between the first trimester of pregnancy and the end of the first year of life. Researchers have now published their findings in the journal Nature. They analyzed the genetic changes of each individual cancer cell in tumor samples in order to reconstruct which genetic changes occur first during tumor development and when.

A research team led by PD Dr. Justus Marquet and from the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research has developed two methods that allow muscle activity and training-induced adaptations to be measured completely contactlessly. The studies demonstrate that magnetic fields generated during muscle activity can be captured using highly sensitive quantum sensors - without the need for electrodes or skin contact.

Individuals with a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s disease show altered blood levels indicating damaged neuronal contacts as early as 11 years before the expected onset of dementia symptoms. This is evident in the levels of the protein “beta-synuclein”. An international team report these findings in the journal “Alzheimer’s & Dementia”. The biomarker studied here could potentially help to detect neurodegeneration at an early stage.

Contact with pets reduces the risk of developing stress-related disorders in adult life in urban children. This is the conclusion of a study conducted by the Section for Molecular Psychosomatic Medicine at Ulm University Hospital together with other researchers from Germany and the USA. Living with animals is said to alleviate inflammatory stress reactions.

The Medical Faculty Heidelberg of Heidelberg University and Mannheim University of Applied Sciences are combining their expertise in infectious disease research, mass spectrometry, and bioinformatics to overcome resistance in malaria vectors. The project is supported by funding from the Gates Foundation.

Metastatic breast cancer requires complex and lengthy treatment, the side effects of which affect the quality of life of patients. These often include sexual problems. In a large international randomized exercise intervention trial, researchers have now shown that women who received a nine-month supervised exercise program reported significantly fewer symptoms than women who did not participate in the training program.

Germany's most important award for young scientists honors the development of immunotherapies against malignant brain tumors.

Researchers from the universities in Konstanz and Vienna discover a new class of antibiotic that selectively targets Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes gonorrhoea. These substances trigger a self-destruction program, which also operates in multi-resistant variants of the pathogen. The novel findings are published in the current issue of Nature Microbiology.

84 percent of Germans consciously consider their diet. For the majority, nutrition is a central topic, but many perceive the public debate as divisive and patronising. According to the latest nutrition study by the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the More in Common, citizens want policies that promote healthy, regional, and affordable food – without regulations or bans. At the same time, they are calling for more say in shaping the food system.

Two molecular control factors play a decisive role in what is known as splicing, the cutting and assembly of mature messenger RNA – a prerequisite for protein synthesis in the cell. The poorly characterized factors are crucial to ensuring that the molecular machine responsible for splicing is working correctly. A research team has deciphered how the two cellular quality inspectors work.

Stomach ulcers, gastritis and even stomach cancer are often the result of an infection with Helicobacter pylori. If the bacterium remains unrecognised for a long time, this can have serious consequences. Researchers have now developed a miniaturisable sensor system for the mobile analysis of breath that is effective, fast and inexpensive. The research team uses a biological survival trick of the stomach germ to detect the bacterium.

The weight of expectant mothers could play a role in the development of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in daughters – but not in sons. This has been shown by researchers at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ).

Researchers have developed a promising cellular immunotherapy for the treatment of glioblastomas: They equipped T cells with a receptor that recognizes a protein of the brain tumors that is responsible for the dangerous stem cell properties. The therapeutic T cells directed against this target structure were able to specifically destroy human brain tumors in laboratory experiments and in mice.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems developed a single-cell green microalgae coated with magnetic material. This miniature robot was put to the test: would the microalgae with its magnetic coating be able to swim through narrow spaces and, additionally, in a viscous fluid that mimics those found in the human body? Would the tiny robot be able to fight its way through these difficult conditions?

University of Tübingen research team shortens the search for attackers that can wipe out multiresistant pathogens – with the aim of treating infections without antibiotics

The Max Planck Society and the Dieter Schwarz Foundation (DSS) have embarked on a groundbreaking initiative. On March 13, 2025, they signed an agreement through which the foundation will support an innovative approach by the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg to translate basic research findings into practical applications. As part of this endeavour, two new departments of the institute will be established in Heilbronn.