Healthcare industry

Dossier - 28/08/2018

With molecular diagnostics to biomarker-based personalised therapy

Diagnosing suitable biomarkers is a prerequisite for tailoring personalised therapies to patient heterogeneity. Genetic tests and genome sequencing play a key role in these diagnoses. Up until now, personalised therapy has achieved the greatest success in the field of oncology. However, personalised treatments are also gaining in importance for treating other diseases.

Article - 07/03/2016

Looking at the control of cellular homeostasis

Many biological processes that occur in our body are driven and controlled by protein complexes. In order to better understand these processes, biochemist Prof. Dr. Florian Stengel from the University of Konstanz is developing methods that will eventually make it possible to study the architecture, interactions and general dynamics of intact protein complexes quantitatively and in detail. Stengel combines structural mass spectrometry methods with…

Article - 14/10/2015

High-throughput technologies and bioinformatics from a single source – the Quantitative Biology Center (QBiC)

“Omics” is a current buzz word used to describe comprehensive investigations in many areas of the life sciences. In practice, omics refers to fields of scientific study that involve a huge number of experiments and even more data. Evaluating and managing all the data within a fixed period is a huge challenge for most researchers working on their own. It was to address these issues that the Quantitative Biology Center – QBiC for short – was…

Article - 15/06/2015

Centre for Personalised Medicine in Tübingen - developing tailor-made treatments for patients

Since January 2015, Tübingen has been home to a Centre for Personalised Medicine (ZPM). Twenty-three institutes and hospitals have joined forces to improve diagnosis of disease and develop individualised treatments for patients with a variety of diseases. In parallel, the centre also develops new diagnostic strategies. This means, for example, that data derived from the analysis of the entire genetic material of cells, proteins and metabolic…

Article - 22/12/2014

Bioinformaticians shed light into the data jungle

In recent years, the University of Tübingen has developed a tightly integrated service structure for the computer-based management of life sciences data. This structure is the point of contact for all those that produce or work with “omics” data – in Tübingen and beyond.

Article - 20/10/2014

Michael Schindler: HI virus and host interactions

Prof. Dr. Michael Schindler explores the interaction between viruses and their human host cells on the molecular level. His specific interest is HI virus infections and the mechanisms the virus uses to attack the human immune system. Schindler’s eventual aim is to identify a new target for the therapy of HIV infections. In April 2014, Schindler was appointed head of the Department of Molecular Virology of Human Infectious Diseases at the…

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…

Article - 02/06/2014

Researchers shed light on important metabolic pathway

A research team led by microbiologist Dr. David Schleheck, in cooperation with chemists from the University of Konstanz, has discovered how sulpho-glucose is degraded in Escherichia coli bacteria. As this sulphurous glucose analogue is produced by all photosynthetically active organisms, the researchers’ discovery is of great importance for our understanding of the global sulphur cycle.

Article - 26/05/2014

With printable biotech through the entire sequence space

A peephole is not enough for Frank Rosenau. He wants to see everything. The insatiable scientist is a biotechnologist at Ulm University and his aim is to exploit everything the emerging field of printable biotechnology can offer to miniaturization in pharmaceutical research. Working with chemists, physicists and medical doctors, Rosenau focuses on the cell-free production of all theoretically possible peptides in the human body.

Article - 28/04/2014

New ways to interfere with bacterial strategies

Bacteria themselves provide the key to their destruction. New insights into the growth and interaction between different pathogens are used in microbial genetics to develop new methods and active substances for combatting multidrug-resistant bacterial strains.

Article - 28/04/2014

Sciomics: antibody microarrays and their broad range of applications

Sciomics GmbH is a start-up biotech from Heidelberg with a special focus on protein microarrays. Sciomics produces complex, high-density antibody microarrays for cancer-relevant proteins and offers services for medical research, diagnostics and the industry, including biomarker screening, the verification of biomarker candidates, the analysis and localization of drug targets and their signalling pathways as well as the characterization of…

Dossier - 04/11/2013

Biotechnology – driver of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry

The biotech industry is the innovative driver for a pharmaceutical industry that, due to the shift from blockbluster products to personalised medicine, now depends on new concepts. The production of new drugs using genetic engineering relies on knowledge gained from genomics, proteomics and systems biology and creates new treatment strategies that combine therapy and diagnostics (i.e. companion diagnostics) to provide a specific individualised…

Article - 09/09/2013

Karsten Borgwardt, a specialist in data mining

The use of cutting-edge genomics, proteomics and metabolomics methods generates ever-increasing amounts of data in ever decreasing timescales. Special mathematical and computational methods are required for deducing relevant information from specific patterns. The data mining specialist Karsten Borgwardt from Tübingen is developing such methods for specific application in the life sciences.

Dossier - 13/05/2013

The human proteome – the next major goal

The “Human Proteome Project”, a ten-year global initiative that is making a systematic effort to map all human proteins, has moved from the planning to the experimental stage. How significant and how effective the project will be depends on how much the resources offered are used by proteome researchers and on the data that the researchers bring into the project.

Article - 11/03/2013

Trenzyme – optimal expression of recombinant proteins

Trenzyme GmbH in Konstanz offers services and products in the fields of genomics and proteomics. The company specialises in contract research and custom R&D services and is also working on new and improved products and processes. The company recently developed a new method for the rapid identification of optimal expression conditions for recombinant proteins.

Article - 25/02/2013

Molecular monitoring of premature infants

Premature births are not uncommon in Germany where around seven percent of newborns are born before week 37 of pregnancy. The WHO estimates that the numbers of preterm births are growing due to the increasing age of mothers. Doctors caring for the tiny patients are faced with a dilemma because regular blood samples required for the clinical monitoring of important blood parameters cannot be taken due to the infants low body volume.

Article - 18/02/2013

AIDS researchers from Ulm to shed light on the success of the HIV-1 M group

Frank Kirchhoff AIDS researcher at the University of Ulm has come up with a plausible explanation for the pandemic spread of the human immunodeficiency virus 1 HIV-1 M group and its ability to adapt to the human immune system. In a recent study with colleagues from Germany and abroad Kirchhoff used molecular biology methods to investigate the group and compare it with the relatively rare HIV-1 N group. Kirchhoff hopes that the molecular…

Article - 12/11/2012

Autoimmune diseases – when the body sheds its skin

Most people believe that snakes and insects are the only animals able to shed their skin. However autoimmune diseases of the largest human organ i.e. the skin can have a similar effect by creating blisters scars peeling and wet wounds. Dr. Cassian Sitaru from the University of Freiburg Medical Centre specifically focuses on blistering autoimmune dermatoses. Using disease models in Petri dishes and laboratory mice Sitaru and his team hope to find…

Article - 08/10/2012

Martin Beck and the nuclear pore atlas

Dr. Martin Beck from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg was awarded an ERC Starting Grant for his project “Atlas of Cell-Type Specific Nuclear Pore Complex Structures”. The combination of cryo-electron microscope tomography, proteomics and biochemical methods will enable the creation of a high-resolution three-dimensional image of the nuclear pore complex.

Dossier - 01/10/2012

Systems biology: understanding complex biological systems

Systems biology studies complex interactions within biological systems on the genome proteome and organelle level. Many techniques from the fields of systems theory and associated fields can be used to gain an understanding of the behaviour and biological mechanisms of cellular systems.

Press release - 24/09/2012

New method for identifying and measuring secreted proteins over time

It is much harder to keep up with a conversation in a crowded bar than in a quiet little caf but scientists wishing to eavesdrop on cells can now do so over the laboratory equivalent of a noisy room. A new method devised by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory EMBL in collaboration with the German Cancer Research Centre DKFZ both in Heidelberg Germany provides a new approach for studying the proteins cells release to…

Article - 23/07/2012

Evolution of regenerative mechanisms and stem cell systems

Researchers from around the world participated in the first annual symposium organised by the Centre for Organismal Studies (COS) Heidelberg in early July to discuss the evolution of the regenerative mechanisms and stem cell systems of plants and animals. Although stem cells and the multicellularity of animals and plants evolved independently from each other, their stem cell systems are nevertheless governed by the same principles.

Press release - 24/05/2012

Jiangsu Life Science and Technology Innovation Park

The park is still under construction (first construction phase finished in autumn 2012). Located in Xianlin University Town, East of Nanjing Center, it is in the immediate neighborhood of the new campuses of Nanjing University, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and China Pharmaceutical University.

Press release - 23/05/2012

GlaxoSmithKline to fully acquire Cellzome for 99 million U.S. dollar

GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire those shares it does not currently own in Cellzome, a leader in the development and advancement of proteomics technologies, for £61 million (US$99 million) in cash. Cellzome, a privately owned company with laboratories in Cambridge, UK, and Heidelberg, Germany, will become part of GSK’s R&D organisation.

Article - 21/05/2012

Kathrin Thedieck – the art of deciphering signalling

The molecule mTOR is one of the most important cellular switch centres it controls cellular growth in relation to the availability of nutrients and also plays a key role in the pathogenesis of cancer neurodegenerative diseases and ageing. Dr. Kathrin Thedieck from the Institute of Biology III at the University of Freiburg is interested in solving the question as to how insulin growth factors or nutrients such as amino acids influence the complex…