About 250,000 people in Germany live with epilepsy that does not respond adequately to medication. How can their treatment be further improved with a brain pacemaker? As part of the CLOUDIA research project, the Medical Center – University of Freiburg is now collaborating with a medical technology company to develop an AI-supported assistance system for analyzing long-term brain activity data.

The start-up xenko has been awarded an EXIST grant of 143,500 € from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The team of founders from Ulm University is developing a digital health platform designed to encourage more physical activity in everyday working life through virtual reality. This development is of interest to companies with occupational health management schemes and, in the long term, to the physiotherapy sector as well.

How can cell-based immunotherapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases become more widely available in the long term? The SYNTHIA project is addressing this challenge: The Max Planck Institute for Medical Research and the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI are collaborating on new research approaches to advance the development of cell-based immunotherapies.

CAR-T cell therapies have proven successful in treating several types of blood and lymphoid cancers. However, their use in treating other tumors is significantly more challenging, in part because suitable target structures are lacking.

CAR-T cell therapies have proven successful in treating several types of blood and lymphoid cancers. However, their use in treating other tumors is significantly more challenging, in part because suitable target structures are lacking.

An international consortium led by researchers at the Heidelberg Faculty of Medicine at Heidelberg University will develop an AI-powered interactive assistant for the analysis of patient experiences over the next four years. The goal is to identify individual burdens and challenges early and comprehensively and make this information actionable for patients, care teams, and health systems.

A project funded by the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg is investigating the interplay between RNA modifications and epigenetic mechanisms during cell division – and its potential significance for treatment resistance in cancer.

ViferaXS, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing peptide-based cancer immunotherapy for hematologic malignancies and solid tumors, today announced the close of the Series A financing round of up to €12 million, including grant funding. The round was led by SPRIND, the German Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation, and Huma, with participation from private investors.

A team of researchers at the University of Stuttgart has developed a new method that could make MRI even more precise by eliminating “dead time,” a key limiting factor in the measurement process, thereby enabling the detection of signals that are lost using conventional methods. This method opens up new possibilities for medical diagnostics and non-destructive materials testing. The research team presents the new approach in Science Advances.

Effective 1 October 2026, Professor Jakob Nikolas Kather will assume the Hopp Foundation Professorship for “Artificial Intelligence in Medicine” at the Heidelberg Faculty of Medicine at Heidelberg University. Associated with the professorship is the establishment of the new Institute for Medical AI (IMAI) at Heidelberg University Hospital, which Professor Kather will lead as its founding director.

While the cell nucleus contains almost all of the genome, the mitochondria – the powerhouses of the cell – have their own small genetic code. It consists of only 37 genes, which are organized in circular DNA – mtDNA, for short. Defects in the mitochondrial genome are related to incurable neurodegenerative and metabolic diseases, cancer and also aging processes.

With funding from the German Research Foundation’s (DFG) Heisenberg Program, DKFZ researcher Aurélie Ernst aims to investigate how massive changes in the genome contribute to the development of cancer. Her research focuses on a phenomenon known as chromothripsis - a catastrophic event in the genome in which chromosomes break apart and are reassembled incorrectly.

Three researchers at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have each been awarded a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) this year. Daniel Kirschenbaum, Lena Kutscher, and Michael Scherer impressed the ERC with their innovative research approaches to fundamental questions in cancer medicine.

Cells of the highly aggressive brain tumor glioblastoma exhibit predatory behavior: they exploit signaling between healthy neurons and internalize portions of their contact sites. Dr. Dr. Varun Venkataramani of the Heidelberg Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University, and his research team, will investigate how glioblastoma cells benefit from this process and whether it may represent a novel therapeutic target.

Research into quantum technology by four teams at Ulm University is being funded as part of the European QuantERA programme. This is more than at any other German university. The projects focus, for example, on more robust quantum computers and innovative medical diagnostic methods.

Revier Therapeutics, today announced the closing of a EUR 6 million seed financing and the launch of its operations. The Company has established the first therapeutic approach to selectively target class IIa histone deacetylases (HDACs) for the treatment of cardiometabolic diseases.

How can a respiratory virus be stopped before it spreads throughout the body? In the MucoShield project, Prime Vector Technologies, the NMI Tübingen, and Fraunhofer IGB are developing an intranasal vaccine candidate against human metapneumovirus (HMPV), which causes hundreds of thousands of cases of severe respiratory disease worldwide each year – especially among children, older people, and immunocompromised individuals.

Researchers and physicians at the Hopp Children's Cancer Center Heidelberg (KiTZ) and other leading cancer centers report an exceptional treatment success in an adolescent with an advanced, therapy-resistant kidney tumor. Using a novel, personalized T-cell therapy, they succeeded in completely pushing back the tumor disease despite multiple metastases.

Researchers from the Medical Faculty Heidelberg, the Medical Faculty Mannheim, and the Centre for Organismal Studies at Heidelberg University have launched a new research project investigating so-called dipeptides. The consortium aims to determine which dipeptides have the strongest protective effects and how they could be harnessed in future therapies for vascular and kidney diseases.

The National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg and the Mannheim Cancer Center (MCC) are receiving joint funding as a Center of Excellence in Oncology for the first time. German Cancer Aid is providing 4.8 million euros over four years for the new consortium.

Over the next five years, Dr. Mykhailo Batiuk and his research group at the Heidelberg Faculty of Medicine at Heidelberg University will investigate the biological mechanisms underlying post-traumatic stress disorder. The European Research Council (ERC) is supporting the project with an ERC Starting Grant worth approximately €1.4 million.

The University of Freiburg took part in this year’s Käpsele Innovation Festival with contributions from the fields of research and entrepreneurship promotion. The event focused on future-oriented topics such as Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity and resilience, as well as on fostering dialogue and networking amongst stakeholders from the worlds of academia, business and politics.