Healthcare industry

The start-up 3a-diagnostics GmbH from Frickenhausen is developing a gum that can be used both in doctors’ surgeries and at home as a quick and easy diagnostic aid. The sensor in this case is the human tongue. If bacteria are present – due to an inflammation of the teeth or tonsils, for instance – chewing produces a bitter taste and the doctor can quickly initiate the appropriate treatment.

Article - 30/01/2019

candidum – computer-assisted enzyme design

Industry has been using enzymes for over a hundred years. While it initially had to content itself with natural enzymes, it is now increasingly possible to design tailor-made biocatalysts with specific properties. The start-up company candidum GmbH from Stuttgart promises to achieve this faster than ever before - mostly thanks to accelerated virtual screening.

Article - 29/01/2019

Targeted RNA editing with the body’s own enzyme activity

Completely new possibilities for research and gene therapy became available following the development of the CRISPR/Cas method for targeted modification of the genome. However, treatment with molecular scissors is not without risk as potential errors are stored in the genome forever. Scientists from Tübingen have developed an alternative method in which the intervention takes place at the RNA level using the body's own enzymes and is thus…

Press release - 10/12/2018

High distinction for stem cell researcher Andreas Trumpp

This year's State Research Prize of Baden-Württemberg awarded for outstanding achievements in applied research goes to Andreas Trumpp from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology and Experimental Medicine (HI-STEM). Theresia Bauer, State Minister of Science, Research and the Arts, presented the award, which carries a monetary prize of €100.000, at a festive ceremony on December 10, 2018.

Biosensor - 13/11/2018

Rapid medical test for at-home use

For quite a number of illnesses, patients need to have the concentrations of the medications they are taking and their blood metabolites checked on a regular basis, which can make life rather difficult. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg have now developed a test based on the firefly enzyme luciferase. This enzyme can be used to quickly and cheaply measure parameters of interest.

Press release - 03/04/2018

Double success for Heidelberg stem cell researchers

Two awards at once, both carrying high monetary prizes, go to young researchers from the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Research and Experimental Medicine (HI-STEM) at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ): Simon Raffel will receive the 2018 Walter Schulz Prize. Simon Haas will share the 2018 Otto Schmeil Prize with his colleague Lars Velten from EMBL.

Article - 18/01/2018

Medications that target metastasing tumours

Tumour metastases are often resistant to the drug that is used to eliminate the primary tumour. Genome-wide analyses of mutation patterns in the primary tumour and its metastases provide information on the aggressiveness of cancer and may help to find the best available means of further treatment. This has been demonstrated by scientists from Heidelberg in a clinical trial on the molecular evolution of renal cancer.

CureVac AG, a leading clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of pioneering mRNA therapeutics, and Arcturus Therapeutics Ltd. (NASDAQ:ARCT), an RNA medicines company, today announced they have entered into a broad strategic collaboration to jointly discover, develop and commercialize novel messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics.

Article - 11/12/2017

KDM4 – an efficient target for the therapy of triple-negative breast cancer

While breast cancer survival has clearly improved in recent years, women with triple-negative breast cancer have benefitted very little from progress in cancer medicine. Targeted therapies aimed at inhibiting epigenetic regulators might offer a potential new option for the treatment of breast cancer. Prof. Dr. Roland Schüle and Dr. Jochen Maurer have discovered an epigenetic enzyme called KDM4 and come up with a new cell model that significantly…

Press release - 05/09/2017

Cell marking opens up a window into the body

A new and particularly reliable method for marking cells can simplify research into diseases such as myocardial infarction, diabetes or Alzheimer's and reduce the use of test animals: Scientists from the University of Tübingen have developed a method by which they can target specific cell types in mice and monitor their behavior using positron emission tomography (PET). PET-based cell tracking allows scientists to observe complex life…

Article - 24/07/2017

Cancer medicine development as a science and industry partnership

The German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and Bayer AG are collaborating on a strategic partnership focusing on the development of innovative cancer therapies. The two partners have developed an active substance which selectively blocks a mutation of a metabolic enzyme that occurs in certain types of cancer. The substance has been successfully tested in preclinical studies and is now also being tested in a clinical trial on patients with brain…

Article - 04/07/2017

Ruxolitinib – successful graft-versus-host disease treatment

Graft-versus-host disease is a serious complication in leukaemia patients who have been given a blood stem cell transplant from a genetically different person. Prof. Dr. Nikolas von Bubnoff and Prof. Dr. Robert Zeiser from the Department of Haematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation at Freiburg University Medical Centre initiated a Germany-wide study to show that an active substance called ruxolitinib has a promising therapeutic effect.…

Article - 25/04/2017

Andreas Marx: myPOLS is developing enzymes for special applications

Prof. Dr. Andreas Marx, chemist and polymerase specialist, is Professor of Organic Chemistry/Cellular Chemistry at the University of Konstanz. Three years ago, he also founded a company called myPOLS Biotec GmbH together with his then doctoral student Ramon Kranaster. myPOLS Biotec GmbH produces DNA polymerases that are tailored to the requirements of the company’s clients. In addition, the company also carries out contract research. The dual…

Article - 02/03/2017

Personalised antibiotics therapy: fewer antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Antibiotics have long been used as all-purpose weapons against infectious diseases – too often and too early, as we now know. This tendency has caused many bacteria to become resistant to standard antibiotics. The search for new substance classes has proved quite difficult. Care must therefore be taken to use existing antibiotics prudently in order to reduce the number of bacteria becoming resistant to them in the long term. Researchers from…

Article - 21/12/2016

For all types of tests: Signatope’s biomarker assays

Signatope is a new biotech company that has been offering innovative biomarker assays for application in drug discovery since August 2016. The company’s assays can be used in all phases of drug development to detect potential adverse drug effects on the kidneys, liver and other organs in any species whatsoever using minute amounts of sample.

Expert interview - 14/11/2016

Fighting diseases with plant-derived active compounds

Herbal medicines have a long tradition in Germany. In an interview with Dr. Ariane Pott from BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg GmbH, Professor Dr. Michael Wink, Director of the Institute of Pharmacy and Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Heidelberg, highlighted that plants produce compounds that are effective against microorganisms and that can also be put to good use in the treatment of human diseases.

Article - 08/11/2016

Towards at-home genetic testing

The ability to detect a broad range of conditions and modifications in human, animal, plant and pathogen genes is highly important in the field of medicine for diagnosing diseases and starting therapy as quickly as possible. Chemists at the University of Konstanz have now developed a genetic test that does not need to be carried out in the laboratory and can be evaluated with the naked eye, similar to a pregnancy test. The test would therefore be…

Article - 18/08/2016

Moonlighting proteins can make bacteria pathogenic

The mechanism underlying the export of biomolecules from cells remains unknown. Prof. Dr. Friedrich Götz and his team at the Institute of Microbial Genetics at the University of Tübingen have found out that staphylococci can turn into dangerous pathogens by excreting normally harmless enzymes. The researchers believe that the enigmatic excretion of such enzymes is due to a completely new mechanism and are thus planning to carry out further…

Article - 11/07/2016

Endogenous oxidants: biosensor monitoring of metabolic conditions in living organisms

The oxidation state of the cells in our body is very important for us: if the normal balance of the distribution of endogenous oxidants is disturbed or if they attack cellular structures, cells are either unable or only partially able to fulfil their functions, and diseases develop. Dr. Tobias Dick and his team of researchers at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg have now developed a biosensor that facilitates real-time…

Article - 04/07/2016

Epigenetic modifications for the treatment of oesophageal cancer

Oesophageal cancer is a rare but highly aggressive type of cancer with a rather poor prognosis. Dr. Theresa Ahrens, a researcher in a group led by Prof. Dr. Silke Laßmann and Prof. Dr. Martin Werner at the Institute of Clinical Pathology at the Freiburg University Medical Centre, has tested a variety of epigenetic drugs that can interfere with the development of oesophageal cancer.

Company profile - 27/06/2016

Atriva Therapeutics GmbH: new ways to treat influenza

Influenza viruses constantly change and mutate. This makes treatment difficult and vaccination rather touch and go. But what about targeting virus-manipulated cell events rather than using the virus itself as drug target? Atriva Therapeutics GmbH, a start-up company from Tübingen, shows how this works.

Article - 30/05/2016

The unknown dark spot of the microcosm

The world of microorganisms is still largely unknown. Researchers such as Kai Sohn from the Fraunhofer IGB in Stuttgart are working on decoding, analysing and gradually gaining a better understanding of the microbial genome. In their search for new enzymes and other biomolecules, both biotechnologists and pharmacologists are interested in micoorganisms, and physicians are hoping that detailed insights into the microbial genome will lead to the…

Article - 25/04/2016

Pancreatic cancer and its resistance to therapy

Pancreatic tumours are among the cancers with the worst prognosis. In many cases they are resistant to treatment. Prof. Dr. Andreas Trumpp and his colleagues from the DKFZ and the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology and Experimental Medicine HI-STEM have discovered that the reason why some pancreatic tumours are so resistant to treatment is down to larger quantities of the enzyme CYP3A5 in subtypes of pancreatic cancer. Molecular…

Dossier - 18/04/2016

Epigenetics – heritable traits without changing the DNA sequence

Epigenetics, i.e. the inheritance of traits that does not involve a change in the DNA sequence, was once a controversial subject that has since become a central focus of biological research. Epigenetic inheritance is now studied by numerous national and international research programmes. Many cellular regulatory and differentiation processes are controlled by epigenetic mechanisms that take place on different levels, including the DNA, histone,…

Article - 17/12/2015

Inhibition of bromodomain affects stem cell differentiation

DNA methylation and histone modification are epigenetic mechanisms that affect gene transcription. Moreover, protein complexes can regulate gene expression by modifying chromatin structure and function. Dr. Thomas Günther and his team from the Center for Clinical Research at the Freiburg University Medical Center are studying the effect of the inhibitor PFI-3 on the BAF complex. This protein complex modifies chromatin structure and controls the…