Healthcare industry

Researchers in Ulm are hoping to find new ways to destroy bone marrow cancer multiple myeloma cells through radiation. The German Jos Carreras Leukaemia Foundation is funding the research with a total of about 300000 euros over three years.

Press release - 26/10/2012

What causes chronic bowel disease?

Europe-wide network for investigating irritable bowel syndrome headed by Heidelberg University HospitalEuropean Science Foundation provides 500000 euros in funding for understanding causes improving options for diagnosis and treatment.

Article - 25/03/2013

IDP provides efficient help to address the flood of information

The Institute of Data Analysis and Process Design IDP at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW has developed intelligent software to analyse thousands of gene expression products simultaneously and automatically. This software considerably reduces the workload. The IDP has recently become a member of BioLAGO e.V. and specialises in statistical data analysis modelling and optimisation of processes and systems.

Article - 31/03/2014

TherapySelect – Identifying Susceptibility to Cancer Therapy

TherapySelect Dr. Frank Kischkel is an innovative biotechnology company based in Heidelberg, Germany, with a special focus on the development, validation and application of diagnostic tests for cancer patients. The company’s proprietary CTR-Test® uses patients’ cancer cells to determine the tumor’s susceptibility to treatment with cytostatic drugs. This knowledge helps identify ineffective drugs prior to treatment as well as reduce adverse drug…

Article - 27/08/2012

How the distance from the source affects tissue patterning and growth in embryos

During the embryonic development of fruit flies, zebra fish and humans, just a handful of molecules control cell migration, induce cell division and determine which cells form which type of tissue. A group of researchers led by Dr. Giorgos Pyrowolakis at the University of Freiburg is specifically focused on one of these so-called master regulators. How do the differently patterned BMP gradients develop in Drosophila melanogaster eggs, embryos and…

Dossier - 07/02/2011

The era of personalised medicine is dawning

A promising future does not easily disappear into thin air. This is certainly the case with the vision of personalised medicine. For many years, biomedical researchers have vaunted the potential benefits of their findings despite the fact that neutral observers do not think that personalised medicine will really take off within the next 15 or 20 years. Moreover personalised medicine is a controversial term. So what is the state of play right now?

Article - 28/07/2014

Successes and setbacks of clinical gene therapy

The use of retroviral haematopoietic stem cell gene therapy to treat hereditary immunodeficiencies has achieved great success in resolving the actual symptoms of the disease, but many of the patients that underwent therapy developed leukaemia later. Effective gene therapies involving gene shuttles that do not cause cancer are therefore required. The good news is that such therapies already exist.

Scientists of the University of Heidelberg and the German Cancer Research Centre have clarified the functional principles of an important receptor for bacterial infections: immune cells recognise bacterial and viral pathogens with a receptor known as toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9), which mediates biochemical reaction chains in order to fend off intruders. This discovery made by the Heidelberg researchers paves the way to develop new anti-infective…

Article - 14/08/2017

Saskia Biskup – towards precision medicine

Therapeutic success can only be achieved when diagnoses are as precise as possible. Nowadays, genetic analyses can make precise diagnoses for many diseases. And thanks to high-throughput technology, results are available to patients very quickly. Dr. Dr. Saskia Biskup recognised the importance of precision medicine many years ago and went on to found CeGaT GmbH, a company that combines human genetics with high-throughput sequencing. Three…

Article - 24/03/2008

Successful cooperation between science and industry

At the recent Science meets Business Day four tandem teams of the German BioValley Platform presented their projects. These will be introduced in two articles. The first article focuses on natural substances with a pharmaceutical potential.

Scientists of the Translational Lung Research Center Heidelberg (TLRC) and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have discovered a new link between excessive airway mucus and chronic airway inflammation that is characteristic of cystic fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The researchers showed that mucus in the airways reprograms certain cells of the immune system.

Press release - 01/08/2012

Combination of businesses of SYGNIS and GENETRIX’ subsidiary X-Pol proposed

SYGNIS Pharma AG and GENETRIX announced today, that the biotechnology companies SYGNIS and GENETRIX have signed a binding Term Sheet under which the companies propose to combine the GENETRIX’ DNA sequencing subsidiary X-Pol Biotech and SYGNIS. Goal is to develop and market X-Pol Biotech, S.L.’s DNA sequencing technologies and products.

Press release - 23/11/2009

GATC Biotech soon opens sequencing laboratory in London

GATC Biotech Europes leading sequencing service provider for industrial and academic research announces that it will open a sequencing laboratory in London to provide scientists in UK and Ireland with single sample sequencing services. The GATC London Laboratory will be situated in the London BioScience Innovation Centre LBIC and will start operations on January 4 2010.

Article - 18/12/2012

Gene therapy medicinal products: the first gene therapy product has been approved – where does the future lie?

Is gene therapy close to broad clinical application? Following negative headlines at the end of the 1990s gene therapy had almost disappeared from the public radar to become an issue almost exclusively dealt with by research laboratories. Gene therapy has now reappeared in the public domain since the European Medicines Agency EMA gave the Dutch biotech company uniQure the go-ahead for the application of somatic gene therapy for the treatment of a…

Professor Dr. Christoph Borner from the University of Freiburg and his team are investigating the molecular mechanisms of apoptosis. Their research also provides insights into the medical treatment of cells that do not want to die - cancer cells.

Article - 12/05/2016

Novel method for predicting the spatial structure of biomolecules

Biomolecules can only fulfil their functions in the cell when they fold into a characteristic native three-dimensional structure. Knowing this structure is not only of paramount importance for basic research, but also for medicine and pharmacology. Scientists from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have therefore developed a simple method to predict the three-dimensional structure of biomolecules from the analysis of readily available…

Article - 27/08/2012

A worm that turned

The body plan of vertebrates resembles an earthworm turned on its back. Unsurprisingly, this radical idea initially met with great criticism but modern evo-devo research supports this idea of inversion. An evolutionarily conserved gene cassette determines the dorsoventral axis in the developing embryo. It does so in both vertebrates and invertebrates. However, the body plans of vertebrates and invertebrates are dorsoventrally inverted with…

Proposals have to be submitted by 1 December 2008.

Scientists from Heidelberg and Mannheim launch research and development task force

Article - 29/11/2010

Against chronic liver inflammation and liver cancer

Chronic hepatitis B and C are the major causes of liver cancer. In contrast to hepatitis B viruses, there is no hepatitis C virus vaccination available. New research carried out by Professor Bartenschlager and his colleagues from Heidelberg might give rise to new strategies for the development of vaccines and medications for the prevention and treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus infections.

Article - 22/04/2013

HB Technologies AG - the automated research laboratory

Automated solutions for research and development have to fulfil special requirements; rather than being directed towards mass production, they need to be able to handle highly complex processes and minute amounts of sample. HB Technologies AG specifically focuses on this market, offering engineering services and products for use in the field of biotechnology.

Nele Wellinghausen has always been interested in plants and animals. As a teenager she studied ferns and won the German Jugend forscht competition. Nowadays the medical expert carries out research on microorganisms specifically on pathogens that lead to sepsis.

Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML) is a rare blood cancer of early childhood. Previous research activities have shown that JMML patients can be divided into three groups based on certain genetic markers, DNA methylation. Depending on the subgroup, statements can be made about the course of the disease.

Article - 20/02/2012

"1KITE" project to unravel the evolution of insects

The large international “1K Insect Transcriptome Evolution” research project aims to construct a robust phylogenetic tree of insects, which is the most species-rich group of organisms. The project aims to study the transcriptomes of 1000 (1K) insect species. The Heidelberg-based Institute for Theoretical Studies provides the software for producing the phylogenetic trees.

Article - 02/05/2016

Hepatitis C: a new starting point for vaccine development

With approximately 150,000 infected people in Germany, hepatitis C is a common disease for which therapies, but no vaccine, are available. Dr. Tobias Böttler from the Freiburg University Medical Center and his team are exploring the body’s immune response to the hepatitis C virus (HCV) and have found valuable information that could be used for vaccine development.