Dossier - 06/03/2018

Big data - the big promise of the new digitised world

Big data is a widely used buzzword in today's information era. The use of big data in the digital world presents both an opportunity and a risk. Mass data is now used and analysed in almost all areas of life. Even the healthcare sector is undergoing extensive digitisation.

The computational design of new proteins for biomedical or other applications involves long computing times on powerful servers. A joint team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen and the University Hospital Tübingen has now developed and tested a new computational method to greatly speed up the necessary energy calculations. Their framework allows for a precise and efficient design of functional proteins.

Tumor vaccines can help the body fight cancer. These vaccines alert the patient's immune system to proteins that are harbouring cancer-typical alterations. Physicians and cancer researchers from Heidelberg and Mannheim have now treated adult patients with advanced midline gliomas, difficult-to-treat brain tumors, with a peptide vaccine for the first time.

Current diagnostic methods do not always reliably distinguish between chronic inflammation of the pancreas and pancreatic cancer. About one third of all diagnoses are inconclusive. Scientists from the German Cancer Research (DKFZ) and from Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD) therefore searched for molecular markers that could specify this diagnosis.

Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute have developed an AI system that recognizes and characterizes white and red blood cells in microscopic images of blood samples. The algorithm can help physicians diagnose blood disorders and is available as an open source method for research purposes.

Dossier - 11/10/2023

The quantum revolution in the healthcare industry

From ultra-fast quantum computers to highly sensitive sensors - quantum technologies could take medicine a giant step forward. Possible areas of application range from drug development and early cancer detection to reading brain waves to control prostheses or exoskeletons. The German state of Baden-Württemberg plays a key role in the development of sensors in particular.

Nanoparticles as drug carriers - 09/11/2023

Inhalation of nanocarriers for antibiotics against resistant tuberculosis pathogens

Around ten million people worldwide still contract tuberculosis every year. With an estimated 1.4 million deaths a year, tuberculosis was the world’s deadliest infectious disease until COVID-19. The high mortality rate is down to the sophisticated biology of the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A team of researchers from the KIT and the Research Centre Borstel (FZB) has developed a method that aims to outsmart the bacterium once and for all.

TÜV SÜD has received approval as a UK Approved Body (UKAB) for medical devices. With this approval, medical device manufacturers can implement UKCA certification for the UK market and CE certification for the European market in a time- and cost-efficient manner with TÜV SÜD.

Augmented reality for visual orientation - 15/11/2023

Fall prevention with the help of balance-enhancing AR glasses

As we age, our eyesight deteriorates and we have increasing difficulties with orientation. This can lead to balance problems and fatal falls. A team led by Dr. Lorenz Assländer from the University of Konstanz is currently developing a prototype of augmented reality (AR) glasses that use superimposed patterns to facilitate visual orientation in space, thereby helping to improve balance control and prevent falls.

High-resolution microscopy technology bypassing the diffraction limit - 26/10/2023

From micro- to nanoscope

It has long been impossible to distinguish objects closer than 200 nanometres using light microscopes. However, novel devices developed by a company called abberior Instruments GmbH, which use technology developed by Nobel Prize winner Prof. Dr. Stefan Hell and his teams in Heidelberg and Göttingen, are now able to bypass this resolution limit and provide detailed insights into living cells in the lower nanometre range.

Epigenetically active drugs enable the cell to read parts of the genome that were previously blocked and inaccessible. This leads to the formation of new mRNA transcripts and also new proteins, as scientists from the German Cancer Research Center and the University Hospital Tübingen have now published. These "therapy-induced epitopes" could help the immune system recognize cancer cells.

Why are severe courses of SARS-CoV-2 infection less common in children and adolescents than in adults? Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) have now discovered that the immune system in the upper respiratory tract is much more alert and active in children before infection than in adults and is therefore better equipped to fight the virus.

A research team of scientists from the Fraunhofer IPA, the Bosch Digital Innovation Hub at Bosch Health Campus and the Institute of Image-Guided Surgery (IHU) of Strasbourg has jointly launched the DAIOR project. Within the framework of the project, the project partners are working on realizing the operating room of the future with help of artificial intelligence and robot assisted telemedicine.

The new Center for Bionic Intelligence Tübingen Stuttgart aims to optimize the interaction between humans and technical systems in a fundamentally new way. Scientists from the Universities of Stuttgart and Tübingen, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics are conducting research on intelligent bionic systems that will aid understanding and treatment of certain diseases of the CNS.

Epigenetically active drugs enable the cell to read parts of the genome that were previously blocked and inaccessible. This leads to the formation of new mRNA transcripts and also new proteins, as scientists from the German Cancer Research Center and the University Hospital Tübingen have now published. These "therapy-induced epitopes" could help the immune system recognize cancer cells.

A researcher team from Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne led by Dr. Vivek Thacker now group leader at the Department of Infectious Diseases at Heidelberg University Hospital have studied why tuberculosis bacteria form long strands and how this affects their infectivity. Their findings could lead to new therapies and have now been published in the journal Cell.

A phase I clinical trial is now starting at Tuebingen University Hospital in the Clinical Collaboration Unit (CCU) Translational Immunology, in collaboration with the Department of Internal Medicine I, which is investigating the therapeutic cancer peptide vaccine Fusion-VAC-XS15 in combination with immune checkpoint blockade by atezolizumab (Tecentriq®).

The development of highly specific T-cell engagers directed against pHLA tumor targets will be quick and easy. BioCopy's innovative pHLA screening technology characterizes drug candidates in great depth for their specific binding against the desired pHLA tumor target. YUMAB develops highly specific antibodies with their advanced antibody technologies.

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Priscilla Briquez, junior professor at the Department of General and Visceral Surgery at the Freiburg University Medical Center and member of the Medical Faculty at the University of Freiburg, has received a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant from the European Commission. Her DRESSCODE project will receive a total of 1.5 million euros funding for five years.

Computer-assisted genome mining - 04/12/2023

Natural product genomics opens up new avenues in the search for antibiotics

Antibiotic-resistant pathogens are increasingly endangering our health. Since most of the drugs currently in use are based on secondary metabolites produced by bacteria or fungi, the research group of Prof. Dr. Nadine Ziemert in Tübingen is developing bioinformatic tools to specifically search the genome of these organisms for previously unknown antimicrobial agents.

The progression of multiple sclerosis (MS) can usually be slowed down with medication, but a cure is currently not possible. It is now established that Epstein-Barr viruses are involved in the development of MS. However, it is not known how the pathogens trigger the disease. The European Union is now funding the international research consortium BEHIND-MS as part of its HORIZON Europe program.

Health Data Futures project - 11/01/2024

Creating a network of trust

In the three-nation project "Health Data Futures", stakeholders and experts from Germany, France and Switzerland have launched a series of patient-centred innovations. Using various future scenarios, the project partners may be able to come up with even more scenarios.

Heidelberg scientists unveil genetic programmes controlling the development of cellular diversity in the cerebellum of humans and other mammals. The research results have now been published in the journal Nature.