Healthcare industry

The Centre of Innovation Entrepreneurships activities consist of a broad spectrum of different well-matched modules. One of its core activities is the organisation of boot camps a new method supporting the establishment of new companies.

Press release - 19/01/2011

Baden-Württemberg funds innovative ideas in biotechnology and medical technology

The Baden-Württemberg government is planning to exploit the enormous research potential in the fields of biotechnology and medical technology even better than in the past. As part of this objective, the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts launched an idea competition for which a jury has now selected 42 winning projects. The winners are now being given the opportunity to test their ideas in feasibility studies. The…

Press release - 02/10/2010

Baden-Württemberg: an excellent neurosciences profile

According to Science Minister Prof. Dr. Peter Frankenberg, Baden-Württemberg has an excellent neurosciences profile, both in research as well as in the therapy of neurodegenerative diseases. The state’s achievements are well known on the national and international level. Important research and therapy centres include the Tübingen-based Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research and the Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neurosciences…

Scientists at the EMBL and the University of Heidelberg have shown how stressed cells boost the production of the blood-clotting protein thrombin and how cancer cells may be taking advantage of this process. This research could lead to new therapies.

Press release - 20/04/2009

BVMed Annual Report 2008/09: “Process optimization and drive for quality can succeed through cooperation”

The German Medical Technology Association BVMed advocates for process optimization and a drive for quality through stronger cooperations in the healthcare market. Our common aim is to keep our healthcare affordable at a high level of quality for everyone. To do so we need continual process optimization and a stronger quality consciousness in healthcare. This requires the joint efforts of health insurance funds physicians hospitals and medtech…

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen and their colleagues from the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines succeeded in accelerating rice plant breeding by using artificial small RNA molecules.

Dr. Carsten Mehring became the head of a junior researcher group at the Institute of Biology at the University of Freiburg just after finishing his PhD. His concept of coupling the brain to computers has been given the GO-Bio Award of the BMBF. At some stage in the future the brain-machine interface developed by Mehring and his team will enable paralysed patients to move body parts by thought power alone. Mehring is highly fascinated by the brain…

Press release - 27/06/2012

A Virtual Look at the Zebrafish Brain

Scientists have long dreamed of being able to grasp the brain as a whole. A research team led by Junior Professor Dr. Olaf Ronneberger from the Department of Computer Science of the University of Freiburg and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Driever developmental biologist at the Institute of Biology I has now taken a big step toward making this dream a reality. The Freiburg researchers developed microscopic imaging techniques and software for observing and…

Press release - 16/06/2010

Autism: Variations in Number of Genes Characterize Genome

The genetic material of autism patients often shows a number of rare genetic alterations. Many genes have variations in the number of copies – they are multiplied or deleted. Several of the affected genes also play a role in other psychiatric developmental disorders. These results have been published by an international research consortium in the latest issue of the science journal Nature. In Germany, scientists of the German Cancer Research…

BioRegionUlms concept on the development of innovative biopharmaceutical products and services in Baden-Württemberg has been declared one of the winners.

Press release - 03/02/2011

A Possible Cause of Parkinson’s Disease Discovered

When a person has Parkinsons disease the dopamine-producing nerve cells in the brain die which leads to the characteristic symptoms of this neurological disorder. Scientists of the German Cancer Research Center Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum DKFZ have discovered that this group of nerve cells of patients with Parkinsons contains defective nucleoli.

Press release - 30/09/2011

Blood Vessels from Your Printer

Researchers have been working at growing tissue and organs in the laboratory for a long time. These days, tissue engineering enables us to build up artificial tissue, although science still hasn’t been successful with larger organs. Now, researchers at Fraunhofer are applying new techniques and materials to come up with artificial blood vessels in their BioRap project that will be able to supply artificial tissue and maybe even complex organs in…

Press release - 24/08/2012

Cancer Survival in Germany after the fall of the Iron Curtain

Two decades after the fall of the Wall, cancer survival rates in East and West Germany have become almost equal. This is reported in a recent study by a team of epidemiologists from the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) and eleven German cancer registries.

Press release - 12/10/2011

Autoimmune Diseases Affect Cancer Risk

In a recently published study, scientists of the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) have calculated the interrelations between autoimmune diseases and cancer of the digestive tract. They discovered that many autoimmune diseases increase the cancer risk, while others, such as rheumatism, are associated with a significantly lower bowel cancer risk. These differing impacts on cancer risk may be attributable to the…

Press release - 21/09/2012

Biomarkers for virus-induced cancer in the oropharynx

Patients with oropharyngeal cancers have a more favorable prognosis if their tumors are caused by human papillomaviruses. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) and Heidelberg University Hospital have now identified biomarkers which enable them to differentiate cancer cases taking a favorable course from those with an unfavorable one. It may be possible to treat the two disease types…

G proteins play a central role in cellular signal processing. They are described as molecular switches that oscillate between on and off regulated by effectors. Biochemists at Heidelberg University have now gained fundamental insights into the mechanics of these switches.

Press release - 09/04/2011

Alexander Bürkle receives award for research into DNA repair

Dr. Alexander Bürkle from the University of Konstanz was awarded the GT-Toxicology Prize by the Society of Toxicology (part of the German Society of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacoloy and Toxicology) and the journal “Toxicology” for his work on DNA repair mechanisms. Bürkle’s research centres on the enzyme poly[ADP-ribose]polymerase (PARP). The reduced activity of PARP is known to cause the incomplete or delayed repair of continuously…

Press release - 27/10/2011

Bruce Edgar and Andreas Trumpp acknowledged for achievements in life sciences

Molecular biologist Prof. Dr. Bruce Edgar and cancer and stem cell researcher Prof. Dr. Andreas Trumpp have been elected to EMBO membership in recognition of their outstanding scientific contribution. EMBO’s approximately 1,500 members are leaders in their research fields around the world.

Cellzome announced today that it has achieved the second milestone in its epigenetics alliance with GlaxoSmithKline. The milestone triggers a payment of an undisclosed amount from GSK and follows only two months after the first milestone was achieved.

Press release - 28/11/2010

Cardiac catheter surgery for children and young adults without X-ray radiation

Heart specialists and electrophysiologists from Tübingen University Hospital have succeeded for the first time in Germany in treating cardiac arrhythmia without the need for X-ray radiation. This was done through the selection of a new method to control the contact force between the catheter and the blood vessel and cardiac walls. The intervention was successfully carried out on a 16-year-old girl and is regarded as a very attractive alternative…

Press release - 04/12/2008

A strong woman, major success and a new path

This years Science meets Business Day held by the German BioValley Platform was very special. The 2nd December 2008 in the Freiburg Concert Hall marked the end of an era. It was Dr. Thea Siegenführs last public appearance. Dr. Siegenführ has shaped and skilfully organised the biotechnology landscape at the Upper Rhine for the last 16 years.

Press release - 22/03/2011

Bringing artifical vision clinical trials to US

Retina Implant AG Partners with Wills Eye Institute to Bring Artificial Vision Clinical Trials to the United States. Wills Eye to be the Primary Investigation Site to Offer the Subretinal Approach to Retinitis Pigmentosa Patients.

Press release - 17/03/2010

Bacterial balance that keeps us healthy

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, working within the European project MetaHIT and in collaboration with colleagues at the Beijing Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, China, established a reference gene set for the human gut microbiome – a catalogue of the microbe genes present in the human gut. Their work proves that high-throughput techniques can be used to sequence environmental samples, and…

Press release - 17/08/2009

Death Receptor Regulates Brain Regeneration

The so-called death receptor is well known among experts – it induces programmed cell death. In brain stem cells, however, this molecule has an entirely different function, as shown by scientists of the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) in an article published in CELL Stem Cell. Here, signals to the death receptor cause the formation of new nerve cells (neurons). When the researchers switched off the receptor…

GENOVAC GmbH has started a research project funded by the German Ministry for Business and Technology BMWi as part of the program PRO INNO II for the Development and validation of antibodies as a novel therapeutic concept to block liver infection by hepatitis C Virus.