Healthcare industry

Acute Graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a life-threatening complication after leukemia treatment with allogeneic stem cell transplantation i.e. the transplantation of cells from another person. GvHD occurs when the transplanted immune cells are overly active and damage the receiving patient's healthy tissue. Researchers found that an endogenous molecule can mitigate this misdirected immune response.

SolidCAR-T project - 15/03/2022

Modular ‘mini-factories’ for decentralised production of CAR T cells

Novel CAR T-cell therapies have proved to be promising therapeutic options for the treatment of acute leukaemias and lymphomas. Researchers from the Fraunhofer IPA in Stuttgart, the University Hospital Tübingen and the NMI in Reutlingen have joined forces in the SolidCAR-T project that aims to generate CAR T cells to combat solid tumours and produce these cells directly on site in the clinic using automated 'mini-factories'.

Article - 10/06/2021

New study: vaccine therapy for treating patients with chronic leukaemia

Personalised peptide vaccination is expected to improve the treatment of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. A research team from Tübingen has started a Phase I clinical trial with CLL patients who will undergo ibrutinib treatment. Other leukaemia sufferers as well as cancer patients in general are also expected to benefit in the long term.

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 - 22/10/2019

Using CAR T cells for treating cancer

After successes in the treatment of advanced blood cancers, CAR T-cell immunotherapy has become a major beacon of hope in oncology. The first therapies have received regulatory approval. Despite their success, these immunotherapies can have serious side effects. The company AVA Lifescience develops antibodies with high tumour specificity to use as the basis for effective precision-guided CAR T-cell therapies that are better tolerated by patients.

Immatics Biotechnologies GmbH, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company active in the discovery and development of T-cell redirecting cancer immunotherapies, today announced that Immatics and Celgene Corporation have entered into a strategic collaboration and option agreement to develop novel adoptive cell therapies targeting multiple cancers.

Stem cell research - 12/07/2018

The role of stem cell dormancy in regeneration and cancer

Scientists at the HI-STEM stem cell institute in Heidelberg have shown that the stem cells responsible for replenishing blood cells have the greatest potential of self-renewal of any other stem cells. However, they are normally in a dormant state, and only become active upon exposure to certain stress factors. An oncogene called MYC controls the stem cells' transition from dormancy to active self-renewal.

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 - 18/10/2017

Testing a new antibody therapy for treating blood cancer

The fight against acute myeloid leukaemia is a long one. Cancer cells that cause the disease to recur may remain despite initially successful destruction of the tumour with chemotherapy drugs. Now researchers from Tübingen have identified an antibody that could potentially prevent cancer recurrence.

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 - 12/06/2017

IHO: global consulting for the molecular diagnosis of leukaemia

IHO GmbH from Mannheim offers a professional solution for the international exchange of information and services concerning the molecular diagnosis of leukaemia. This drives forward the harmonisation of these methods and brings therapy monitoring to a new global level.

Personalised Medicine - 04/05/2017

Big data make therapy work better

An international team of researchers has shown for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) that cancer therapy can be personalised using big data. The authors of the study “believe this paper is a step towards validation of genetic techniques as a route to personalised medicine”.

Article - 07/03/2017

KiTZ: Hopp Children’s Tumour Center at NCT Heidelberg

The Heidelberg University Hospital and the DKFZ have established the "Hopp Children's Tumor Center at NCT Heidelberg" (KiTZ) where doctors, scientists, nursing staff and other specialists work side by side on new diagnostic and therapeutic options to help children with cancer.

Article - 12/09/2016

New target for the therapy of hepatocellular carcinoma discovered

Hepatocellular carcinoma is the second most common cause of cancer deaths worldwide. If the tumour is at an advanced stage, doctors have few treatment options. Researchers led by Prof. Dr. Lars Zender from the University of Tübingen have now identified one of the cancer's Achilles' heels, namely, the interaction between C-MYC and AURKA proteins, which can be destabilised with a drug, thus killing cancer cells.

Article - 05/09/2016

Apogenix: immuno-oncological protein drugs for the treatment of malignant diseases

Apogenix AG, a biopharmaceutical company from Heidelberg that specialises in immuno-oncology, develops protein drugs that target central signalling pathways involved in regulating the growth, migration and apoptosis of malfunctioning cells and thus offer novel treatment options for cancer and other malignant diseases.

Company profile - 25/07/2016

300MICRONS: 3D cell culture solutions tailored to customer needs

What happens in tissues and organs and how do they react to pharmaceutical substances? Three-dimensional cell cultures can reproduce reality far better than a single-cell layer can. With good reason. Reality is far from two-dimensional. A company called 300MICRONS GmbH develops films with tiny indentations that provide optimal conditions for cells to grow into 3D cell aggregates.

Article - 19/07/2016

Licence to kill – the enormous potential of CAR T cells

With 6 million euros of EU funding, the CARAT project aims to optimise a technology called CAR T that is used to equip T cells with antibody fragments and specifically direct them to destroy cancer cells. The CARAT consortium comprises a multinational team of experts from the Institute for Cell- and Gene Therapy at the Freiburg University Medical Center led by Prof. Dr. Toni Cathomen and seven partner institutions. Cathomen’s team is developing…

The main goal of the European Research Council (ERC) is to fund Europe’s brightest minds and thus encourage the highest quality research. In April 2016, the ERC announced the awarding of its prestigious Advanced Grants, and three life sciences researchers from Baden-Württemberg were among the recipients.

Article - 07/01/2016

New protein helps B cells generate an effective immune response

The human immune system plays a key role for human health. Dr. Gina Fiala, a scientist in Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schamel’s team in the Department of Immunology at Freiburg University, has discovered Kidins220/ARMS in B cells. Kidins220/ARMS is part of the adaptive immune system where it plays a key role in the maturation of B cells.

Article - 12/10/2015

Ulm researchers are writing a new chapter of the thalidomide story

Thalidomide, which was sold in Germany in the late 1950s under the trade name Contergan, is mainly known for having caused one of the biggest pharmaceutical scandals in Germany. However, what was once a sleeping pill is increasingly being used as an immunomodulatory drug for treating tumours of the haematopoietic system, something that is not yet widely known. Dr. Jan Krönke is the head of a junior research group at Ulm University Hospital…

Article - 23/02/2015

Miriam Erlacher: apoptosis research – balancing clinical work and research

Programmed cell death plays an important role in embryonic development and has also been identified as the cause of a range of diseases. It also plays a key role in the development and survival of higher organisms. Its regulation is based on a sophisticated system of interacting antagonistic signals in a network that is still largely unknown. Disturbances in this delicate balance promote the development of diseases such as cancer. Dr. Miriam…

Dossier - 10/11/2014

Cell and gene therapies: from bench to bedside

While cell therapy has become standard treatment for a number of blood cancers, most cell and gene therapy approaches for the treatment of hereditary and metabolic diseases, neurodegenerative disorders and cancer are still in the experimental phases or early clinical trials. However, recent successes give rise to the hope that cell and gene therapies will in future make important contributions to previously incurable diseases.

Article - 08/09/2014

Thomas Boehm – pushing back the frontiers of knowledge

The comparison of different animal species enables us to understand the crucial principle of immune defence on condition that the right investigative approach is chosen. Prof. Dr. Thomas Boehm director of the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg has been doing just this for many years. Based on insights into fundamental immune system functions Boehms research is aimed at developing new strategies for the diagnosis…

Article - 04/08/2014

Europe’s first gene therapy

Scientists from the National Center for Tumour Diseases (NCT) have shown that adeno-associated viruses (AAV) do not pose a cancer risk. This conclusion is based on the analysis of several million patient cells treated with AAV and the finding that the viruses do not integrate into the patient genome. AAV is the first-ever gene therapy for clinical use in the Western world. AAV vectors could also potentially be used as prototypes for the treatment…