It has only recently become known that two parallel systems of blood formation exist in the body. Researchers at the DKFZ have developed a method to examine both systems separately in mice for the first time. Their surprising finding: the majority of immune cells do not originate from classic blood stem cells in the bone marrow, but from precursor cells that are independent of blood stem cells and are already present in the embryo.

In the current selection round, the German Research Foundation (DFG) has granted funding for two new Collaborative Research Centres at the University of Konstanz. Over the next four years, the research teams will be working intensively on trigger signals in biological cells as well as on "silence" and "noise" in human speech.

Researchers from the German Cancer Research Center and the University of Freiburg show how certain painkillers influence the iron metabolism of liver cancer cells and can thus contribute to iron deficiency and anemia in cancer patients.

A team from the DZHK sites in Heidelberg/Mannheim and Berlin has discovered that a single enzyme in the heart plays a key role in determining whether the organ develops in a healthy manner. If this molecular protective factor is missing, serious congenital heart defects can develop.

The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding a new Emmy Noether project led by Jens Puschhof from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). With this project, the junior researcher aims to decipher the role of certain intestinal bacteria in the earliest stages of colorectal cancer development and investigate how this process can be halted. The long-term goal is to develop new preventive strategies against colorectal cancer.

EMBL scientists created SDR-seq, a tool for single-cell DNA-RNA-sequencing that studies both DNA and RNA simultaneously, linking coding and non-coding genetic variants to gene expression in the same single cell.

Since their discovery in 2004, the grid cells in the brain, which are important for our orientation, have been regarded as a kind of “GPS in the head.” However, scientists at the DKFZ and Heidelberg University Hospital have now shown that grid cells work much more flexibly than previously assumed. In experiments with mice, the researchers found that the cells adapt their activity to different reference points depending on the situation.

With the FeMEA project – Ferroelectric Microelectrodes for Biomedical Applications – Hahn-Schickard is setting a pioneering course in bioelectronics research. The aim of the project is to develop novel microelectrode arrays in which ferroelectric materials are used as functional interfaces in CMOS chips for the first time.

When embryos grow, cells and tissue are constantly bumping into each other. This creates mechanical tensions that could endanger their development. A team from University of Hohenheim and the Japanese RIKEN Center have discovered that fly embryos have strategies to deal with this pressure. The different species have developed two different solutions. This ability to control mechanical tension could be a key to why so many body plans have evolved.

Researchers from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have collaborated with the SILVACX project group at Heidelberg University to develop a therapeutic vaccination concept that can mobilize the immune system to target cancer cells. The team showed that virus peptides coupled to silica nanoparticles can elicit effective T-cell responses against HPV-related tumors.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institutes for Medical Research in Heidelberg with its new departments based in Heilbronn, and for Neurobiology of Behavior – caesar in Bonn, and at the Institute for Basic Science at Yonsei University in Seoul will pool their expertise in future. The aim of the new Max Planck Center is to visualize cellular processes deep within human tissue and influence them in a targeted manner — without damaging the tissue.

Diabetics have a higher risk of colorectal cancer and often a poorer prognosis after developing the disease. The biological mechanisms behind this association were largely unknown. A research team at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) has now discovered that tumors with a low number of immune cells appear to be particularly susceptible to the harmful effects of diabetes.

Many people with cancer experience dramatic loss of muscle and fat tissue. In many cases, even the heart muscle is affected. This wasting syndrome, affects around half of all cancer patients. Researchers from Helmholtz Munich, in collaboration with Heidelberg University Hospital, the Technical University of Munich, and the German Center for Diabetes Research, have now identified a previously overlooked driver of cachexia: the liver.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg and ETH Zürich have created the first integrated map detailing the metabolic and molecular changes in human blood stem cells as they age, specialize, or turn cancerous. Their innovative research, made possible by highly sensitive low-input techniques, identifies the nutrient choline, as a key player in preserving youthful stem cell traits.

Cancer can take decades for cancer-promoting changes in the genome to eventually lead to the formation of a malignant tumor. Researchers at the German Cancer Research Center have now developed a method that allows for the first time to reconstruct the temporal development—the evolution—of cancerous cells from a single tissue sample.

For his outstanding achievements in his doctorate at the interface between chemistry and biology, Jonas Wilhelm is awarded an Otto Hahn Medal 2025 by the Max Planck Society. He wrote his thesis in the department Chemical Biology of Kai Johnsson at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research. In his doctorate, Jonas Wilhelm developed a molecular tool, a biosensor that records and permanently stores biological activities at the cellular level.

Dr Dr Varun Venkataramani and Dr Moritz Mall have been awarded this year’s Hella Bühler Prize for their outstanding research on the interaction between nerve and tumor cells and on tumor plasticity. The award granted by Heidelberg University goes to young researchers from the Heidelberg research location who have already drawn attention to themselves through the outstanding scientific quality of their cancer research.

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.

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.

With the goal of creating living cells from non-living components, scientists in the field of synthetic biology work with RNA origami. This tool uses RNA biomolecule to fold new building blocks, making protein synthesis superfluous. In pursuit of the artificial cell, a research team has cleared a crucial hurdle. Using the new RNA origami technique, they succeeded in producing nanotubes that fold into cytoskeleton-like structures.

A recent study by the Hector Institute for Translational Brain Research at the CIMH provides the first cellular insights into how psilocin promotes the growth and networking of human nerve cells.

This year, the Brain Prize worth more than one million euros, honors pioneering work on nervous system-cancer interactions: Neurologist Frank Winkler, who researches at the Heidelberg University and at the German Cancer Research Center and treats patients with brain tumors at the Heidelberg University Hospital, discovered that nerve cells in the brain communicate with brain tumor cells. This causes the disease to progress.

Zebrafish can completely replace damaged heart muscle cells: The affected organ becomes fully functional again. Researchers at Ulm University have discovered that a specific cell-to-cell communication signal helps them to cope better with replication stress. This stress inhibits tissue regeneration in humans and mammals as they age. In Zebrafish a signalling protein ensures that the cells of the damaged organ continue to divide and thus multiply.

A guardian molecule ensures that liver cells do not lose their identity. The discovery is of great importance for cancer medicine because a change of identity of cells has come into focus as a fundamental principle of carcinogenesis for several years. The research team was able to show that the newly discovered guardian is so powerful that it can slow down highly potent cancer drivers and cause malignant liver tumors to regress in mice.

The spliceosome, ensures that the genetic information from the genome, after being transcribed into mRNA precursors, is correctly assembled into mature mRNA. Splicing is a basic requirement for producing proteins. Researchers at the Heidelberg University Biochemistry Center (BZH) have succeeded for the first time in depicting a faultily “blocked” spliceosome at high resolution and reconstructing how it is recognized and eliminated in the cell.