Healthcare industry

Scientists use super-resolution microscopy to study previously undiscovered cellular worlds, revealing nanometer-scale details inside cells. This method revolutionized light microscopy and earned its inventors the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In an international collaboration, AI researchers from Tübingen have now developed an algorithm that significantly accelerates this technology.

Under certain conditions, our immune system can efficiently fight off infectious diseases and cancer. T cells, especially the gamma delta T cell type, play an important role in this. The issue is that this cell type is extremely infrequent in the human body. Researchers at the University Hospital Tübingen, the University of Heidelberg and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have now succeeded in finding the cause for the formation of…

Scientists from the EMBL and the German Cancer Research Center have presented a new method for generating metabolic profiles of individual cells. The method, which combines fluorescence microscopy and a specific form of mass spectroscopy, can analyze over a hundred metabolites and lipids from more than a thousand individual cells per hour. Researchers expect the method to better answer a variety of biomedical questions in the future.

Article - 10/03/2021

Faster to single cells using miniature grinder

Tissue cells are needed for medical diagnostics, cell therapies and tissue engineering, among other things. A novel tissue grinder gently and automatically dissociates cells from tissue. In November 2020, the newly founded biotech company Fast Forward Discoveries GmbH (FFX) delivered its first tissue grinders to customers.

AI-based evaluation of medical imaging data usually requires a specially developed algorithm for each task. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have now presented a new method for configuring self-learning algorithms for a large number of different imaging datasets – without the need for specialist knowledge or very significant computing power.

“Molecular glue degraders” are a new class of cancer drugs, which “glue” cancer growth-promoting proteins directly to the molecular machinery of a cell’s disposal system, leading to the subsequent degradation of the cancer-driving proteins and anti-tumor activity. Scientists from Heidelberg and USA have now deciphered another mechanism whereby a small molecule can degrade a cancer protein.

Sometimes an image is just an image. Sometimes it gives those who can read it correctly a deeper insight into what they can see. In many scientific disciplines, the key to extracting meaningful information from large three-dimensional images, obtained from X-ray tomography or optical microscopy, is segmentation, a tedious and time-consuming – and therefore error-prone – task if done manually.

International study in which Freiburg scientists are participating maps molecular targets for possible therapy for MERS, SARS-CoV1, and SARS-CoV2.

Expert interview - 13/05/2019

Innovation management in the life sciences – Inova DE provides insights

Personalized medicine, medical technology, digital health and artificial intelligence are revolutionizing diagnostics and product development. Analyses are becoming faster and more precise, and data volumes can now be networked and used effectively. The goal of improving people's quality of life is within reach, and this will also strengthen Germany’s future viability. However, not every good idea can be turned into a marketable commodity.…

Article - 26/04/2017

Chaperones disassemble Parkinson’s disease-specific amyloid fibrils

Amyloid fibrils consisting of clumped α-synuclein protein are characteristic of Parkinson's disease. Chaperones, which ensure the correct folding of newly synthesised polypeptides, can inhibit α-synuclein aggregation and, as a consequence, prevent fibrils from forming. Researchers from Heidelberg have shown that a specific combination of human molecular chaperones is able to disassemble fibrils and transform them into non-toxic α-synuclein…

Article - 12/04/2017

Imaging flow cytometry – introducing a new era of imaging

High-resolution images or quantifiable results? Up until now, researchers usually had to choose. All this has now changed thanks to a single device known as an imaging flow cytometer that combines fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. The new device gives new insights into complex biological phenomena in cells. It is available for research purposes at the Research Centre for Women’s Health at the University Hospital of Tübingen, which…

Press release - 31/01/2017

Background Suppression for Super-resolution Light Microscopy

Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have developed a new fluorescence microscopy method: STEDD (Stimulation Emission Double Depletion) nanoscopy produces images of highest resolution with suppressed background. The new method yields an enhanced image quality, which is advantageous when analyzing three-dimensional, densely arranged subcellular structures. STEDD, a further development of the STED method, is now presented in…

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…

Company profile - 05/07/2016

HS-Analysis GmbH – using digital histology to develop new drugs

The idea of analysing tissue samples automatically sounds more of a pipe dream than anything else. However, it already happens. HS-Analysis GmbH's ability to interpret tissue samples automatically is driving new drug development a decisive step forward.

Article - 26/10/2015

Ultrafast STED nanoscopy

Nobel Laureate Stefan Hell and his team at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg have achieved yet another milestone in super-resolved optical microscopy. The team have developed an ultrafast STED (stimulation emission depletion) nanoscope that now makes it possible to study molecular processes and transport processes in living cells in millisecond time steps.

Article - 21/09/2015

Venneos: technology that looks at cells differently

The images of living cells that Venneos GmbH delivers are quite different from those captured by light microscopes. This is because the company, which was established in 2014, uses semi-conductors rather than optical lenses, thus opening up entirely new ways to analyse cells.

Venneos GmbH is based in Stuttgart and develops a novel imaging system for the analysis of biological cells. A consortium of business angels and family offices, along with the High-Tech Gründerfonds and Max Planck Society invest in the company to develop a market-ready product and prepare the market entry of the first product generation.

Article - 01/06/2015

A protein complex that maintains order in the cell

Researchers believe that the defective transport of proteins can be linked with diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Prof. Dr. Elke Deuerling and Dr. Martin Gamerdinger, molecular biologists from the University of Konstanz, have now discovered what is necessary to prevent erroneous protein transport.

Article - 02/03/2015

EU supports biophysicists from Ulm to elucidate the structure of chromatin

Human DNA consists of three billion base pairs, which corresponds to a total length of approximately two metres. DNA must be compressed 200,000-fold in order to fit into the tiny nuclei of mammalian cells. The thread-like complex of DNA and proteins is called chromatin. Although chromatin has been widely studied, relatively little is yet known about the spatial and temporal organisation of chromatin in interphase cells.

Article - 08/12/2014

Stefan Hell – a Nobel Prize for a lateral thinker

Stefan Hell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of STED fluorescence microscopy which has made it possible to obtain optical images well below the optical diffraction limit. However, Hell does not really see himself as a developer. His passion is scientific principles, the identification of how things are connected and the exploration of new, uncharted paths.

Press release - 09/10/2014

Stefan Hell - Nobel Prize in Chemistry

For the second time a researcher at the DKFZ has been awarded the highest distinction in science: Professor Stefan Hell, director of the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen and department head at the DKFZ, has been awarded this year´s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his pioneering work in the field of ultra high resolution fluorescence microscopy. This follows the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine for Harald zur Hausen.

Dossier - 02/06/2014

Bioanalysis – techniques for the characterization of biological material

Science constantly provides researchers with new challenges biologists and bioanalysts have to deal with and which come from sources as varied as the ever increasing number of resistant pathogenic bacterial strains or the famine conditions in Third-World countries. In the search for scientific truths bioanalysis is the development optimization and application of the entire range of analytical methods available. However we need to keep in mind…

Dossier - 28/04/2014

Data mining: new opportunities for medicine and public health

Research and healthcare activities produce huge quantities of data that need to be presented in an understandable structure. This requires computer-assisted extraction of relevant data and the use of statistical methods. This process, known as data mining, enables the discovery of patterns in large data sets. Data mining methods are of particular importance in fields that use high-throughput methods, visualisation methods and telemedical…

Article - 22/07/2013

Marcus Fändrich strengthens protein biochemistry at Ulm University

After quite a long vacancy the directors post of the Institute for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Ulm has finally been filled. Marcus Fändrich and his team moved into the laboratories and offices of the new life sciences building on the Oberer Eselsberg Ulm University campus in November 2012. Fändrich fills a gap in the Ulm Bioregions biopharmaceutical education activities as he will not only be teaching biochemistry…