Tübingen achieves remarkable success and has good chance of maintaining its University of Excellence title – Top research in three areas to be sustained from other sources of support.

Dr Dr Varun Venkataramani and Dr Moritz Mall have been awarded this year’s Hella Bühler Prize for their outstanding research on the interaction between nerve and tumor cells and on tumor plasticity. The award granted by Heidelberg University goes to young researchers from the Heidelberg research location who have already drawn attention to themselves through the outstanding scientific quality of their cancer research.

Medulloblastomas, childhood brain tumors in children, are thought to develop between the first trimester of pregnancy and the end of the first year of life. Researchers have now published their findings in the journal Nature. They analyzed the genetic changes of each individual cancer cell in tumor samples in order to reconstruct which genetic changes occur first during tumor development and when.

The Medical Faculty Heidelberg of Heidelberg University and Mannheim University of Applied Sciences are combining their expertise in infectious disease research, mass spectrometry, and bioinformatics to overcome resistance in malaria vectors. The project is supported by funding from the Gates Foundation.

Researchers from the universities in Konstanz and Vienna discover a new class of antibiotic that selectively targets Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes gonorrhoea. These substances trigger a self-destruction program, which also operates in multi-resistant variants of the pathogen. The novel findings are published in the current issue of Nature Microbiology.

Researchers at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have succeeded in identifying a resistance mechanism that often occurs in a specific targeted therapy against chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The drug ibrutinib is effective in many cases, but therapy resistance often develops during the course of treatment. In cell culture experiments and in mice, the resistance mechanism was successfully overcome using a second drug.

Stomach ulcers, gastritis and even stomach cancer are often the result of an infection with Helicobacter pylori. If the bacterium remains unrecognised for a long time, this can have serious consequences. Researchers have now developed a miniaturisable sensor system for the mobile analysis of breath that is effective, fast and inexpensive. The research team uses a biological survival trick of the stomach germ to detect the bacterium.

University of Tübingen research team shortens the search for attackers that can wipe out multiresistant pathogens – with the aim of treating infections without antibiotics

This year, the Brain Prize worth more than one million euros, honors pioneering work on nervous system-cancer interactions: Neurologist Frank Winkler, who researches at the Heidelberg University and at the German Cancer Research Center and treats patients with brain tumors at the Heidelberg University Hospital, discovered that nerve cells in the brain communicate with brain tumor cells. This causes the disease to progress.

In collaboration with Heraeus, the German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research (DITF) are developing fibers and textiles with a novel infection protection system. The basis is an antimicrobial mechanism of action licensed from Heraeus and marketed under the name AGXX. The goal of the collaboration is to optimally integrate the AGXX technology into textile finishes and coatings and to incorporate it into fiber-spinnable polymers.

Tumor cells circulating in the blood are the "germ cells" of breast cancer metastases. They are rare and could not be propagated in the culture dish until now, which made research into therapy resistance difficult. A team from the DKFZ, the Heidelberg Stem Cell Institute HI-STEM and the NCT Heidelberg has now succeeded for the first time in cultivating stable tumor organoids directly from blood samples of breast cancer patients.

Chromosomal instability plays a role in the progression of cancer: it shapes the properties of tumor cells and drives the development of therapy resistance. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the Heidelberg Stem Cell Institute HI-STEM* and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) used state-of-the-art single-cell analysis methods to analyze the cellular heterogeneity of a specific form of acute myeloid leukemia.

Sustainable medical technology - 10/10/2024

Rethinking plastics in medical technology

Good healthcare relies heavily on medical products made from plastic. However, the widespread use of synthetic materials, particularly disposable items, creates vast amounts of waste, depletes resources and leads to a substantial carbon footprint. To create more environmentally friendly plastic products in the future, substantial changes to production processes are essential.

Personalized medicine with individually tailored therapies is becoming more a reality in cancer. This requires a look into the genetic material of tumors, a molecular diagnostic tumor profile. A research group from the German Network for Personalized Medicine (DNPM) has recorded the quality standards according to which genome analyses are carried out in Germany. The data is a prerequisite for integrating gene sequencing into routine care.

App for tuberculosis diagnosis - 15/05/2024

"Find-TB" aims to improve access to tuberculosis diagnostics

Globally, the majority of children with tuberculosis remain undiagnosed and therefore untreated because their symptoms are categorised incorrectly. Researchers at Heidelberg University Hospital want to develop an app that analyses medical information, risk factors and local surveillance data to calculate individual risk of infection and test those who might be affected with TB as early as possible.

Professor Claudia Denkinger from Heidelberg University's Faculty of Medicine is leading the international collaborative project "BreathForDiagnosis". Researchers from Germany, Italy, South Africa and Romania are working with an industrial partner from Switzerland to develop user-friendly breath tests for the rapid diagnosis of respiratory infections such as tuberculosis.

Fatty liver disease often leads to chronic liver inflammation and can even result in liver cancer. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the University of Tuebingen have now shown in mice that intermittent fasting can halt this development.

PhD student at Furtwangen University develops method for faster determination of antibiotic resistance. The increase in antibiotic-resistant pathogens and the associated treatment, which is a major problem in public healthcare facilities, is the subject of a research project at Furtwangen University.

The market for medical technology is innovative, dynamic, and growing. Bosch sees medical technology as a strategic growth field and intends to expand its Bosch Healthcare Solutions subsidiary, based in Waiblingen. Bosch has now entered into a new partnership with the German diagnostics solutions company R-Biopharm. This partnership will be focused on Bosch’s universal, fully automated Vivalytic molecular diagnostic analysis platform.

Epifadin from the nasal microbiome - 28/03/2024

From the nose: novel antibiotic substance discovered

Antibiotics are becoming an increasingly blunt weapon against infectious diseases. The number of (multi-)resistant germs has been rising rapidly for years and even reserve antibiotics no longer work. Researchers at the University of Tübingen have now isolated a completely new antibiotic substance called epifadin from the microbiome of the human nose. It is effective against many different bacteria - including the dangerous hospital MRSA.

Stem cell research - 14/03/2024

Using organoids to gain a better clinical understanding of pancreatic cancer

Prof. Dr. Alexander Kleger carries out translational research at Ulm University Hospital to gain a better understanding of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and develop individualised treatments. He and his team are using organoid models and stem cell-based systems and have succeeded in simultaneously cultivating all three main cell types of the pancreas from pluripotent stem cells.

Applying and developing new technologies for DNA synthesis to pave the way for producing entire artificial genomes – that is the goal of a new interdisciplinary center, 'Center for Synthetic Genomics', that is being established at Heidelberg University, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU).

More than 65,000 men fall ill with prostate cancer each year in Germany. Twelve thousand of them develop a treatment-resistant form which eventually ends in death. Now, a team of researchers from the Medical Faculty at the University of Freiburg has developed an active substance that might in future represent a new treatment option.

Mutations of the tumor suppressor p53 not only have a growth-promoting effect on the cancer cells themselves, but also influence the cells in the tumor's microenvironment. Scientists at the Weizmann Institute in Israel and at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have now shown that p53-mutated mouse breast cancer cells reprogram fat cells.

For the first time, the active substance epifadin has been isolated at the University of Tübingen – Epifadin is produced by specific bacteria in the nose and on the skin of humans, has an antibiotic effect, and is the first example of a previously unknown antimicrobial compound class.

All-enzyme hydrogels in action - 13/12/2023

Biocatalytic foams enable the sustainable synthesis of complex molecules

Conventional chemical synthesis processes consume large amounts of energy and environmentally harmful solvents. Prof. Dr. Christof Niemeyer’s team at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology has generated porous, solid foams from crosslinked enzymes that allow the production of high-quality compounds under significantly more environmentally friendly conditions. The novel biocatalysts are also extremely resistant and have a long shelf life.

Computer-assisted genome mining - 04/12/2023

Natural product genomics opens up new avenues in the search for antibiotics

Antibiotic-resistant pathogens are increasingly endangering our health. Since most of the drugs currently in use are based on secondary metabolites produced by bacteria or fungi, the research group of Prof. Dr. Nadine Ziemert in Tübingen is developing bioinformatic tools to specifically search the genome of these organisms for previously unknown antimicrobial agents.

University of Tübingen researchers reverse the evolution of a class of antibiotics to gain insights for the development of new drugs.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest types of cancers in humans. Chemotherapies attack not only the tumor cells but also healthy cells throughout the body. Innovative nanoparticles could be a new approach to treat cancer more precisely. The approach was developed by a research team from the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences, the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG), and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

All cancer cells - even those within the same tumor - differ from each other and change over the course of a cancer disease. Scientists at Heidelberg University Hospital, the Medical Faculty in Heidelberg and the German Cancer Research Center discovered molecular changes in multiple myeloma that help individual cancer cells to survive therapy.

Nanoparticles as drug carriers - 09/11/2023

Inhalation of nanocarriers for antibiotics against resistant tuberculosis pathogens

Around ten million people worldwide still contract tuberculosis every year. With an estimated 1.4 million deaths a year, tuberculosis was the world’s deadliest infectious disease until COVID-19. The high mortality rate is down to the sophisticated biology of the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A team of researchers from the KIT and the Research Centre Borstel (FZB) has developed a method that aims to outsmart the bacterium once and for all.

Why are severe courses of SARS-CoV-2 infection less common in children and adolescents than in adults? Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) have now discovered that the immune system in the upper respiratory tract is much more alert and active in children before infection than in adults and is therefore better equipped to fight the virus.

Current diagnostic methods do not always reliably distinguish between chronic inflammation of the pancreas and pancreatic cancer. About one third of all diagnoses are inconclusive. Scientists from the German Cancer Research (DKFZ) and from Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD) therefore searched for molecular markers that could specify this diagnosis.

KIT and Research Center Borstel Present Nanoparticles with a High Antibiotic Concentration for Inhalation – Nanocarriers of Antibiotics Can Reduce Resistances and Enhance Compatibility.

Detecting drug resistance of tumour cells - 25/05/2023

AI-assisted diagnostics declares war on lung cancer

Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers and has a particularly high mortality rate. A significant challenge in treating this disease lies in the resistance of lung tumours to conventional drug therapies, rendering chemotherapy ineffective. There is hope on the horizon as a team of experts from Baden-Württemberg has joined forces to develop an innovative AI-supported test procedure that paves the way for individualised therapy approaches.

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a type of blood cancer that arises from malignant changes in blood-forming cells of the bone marrow. It mainly occurs in older individuals and represents about 20 percent of all adult leukemia cases. A research team from the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Cell Research at the University of Freiburg has now demonstrated for the first time that mast cells play a crucial role in the development of CML.

A key enzyme in sugar metabolism is inactivated particularly easily and efficiently by oxidative stress. Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) have now shown that with this oxidation, cells switch to an alternative sugar breakdown pathway and can thus escape oxidative stress. Cancer cells in particular benefit from this mechanism, which can also protect them from therapy-related damage.

Effective drugs against viral diseases like COVID-19 are urgently needed now and in the future. The emergence of viral mutants and yet unknown viruses could push vaccines to their limits. The DZIF scientist and bioinformatician Andreas Dräger from the University of Tübingen is working on a computer-based method that can help to accelerate the time-consuming identification and development of antiviral agents. Using a novel analysis technique that…

Bacteria of the species Pseudomonas aeruginosa are antibiotic-resistant hospital germs that can enter blood, lungs and other tissues through wounds and cause life-threatening infections. In a joint project, researchers from the Universities of Freiburg and Strasbourg in France have discovered a mechanism that likely contributes to the severity of P. aeruginosa infections.

The hospital pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa requires the sugar-binding proteins LecA and LecB to form biofilms as well as to attach to and penetrate host cells. These so-called lectins are therefore suitable targets for active substances to combat Pseudomonas infections. Researchers from Saarbrücken and Freiburg have now produced potent inhibitors for LecA and LecB that are more stable and soluble than previous drug candidates.

Researchers of the University of Freiburg introduce biosensor for the nucleic acid amplification-free detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA.

Researchers have created a tool that maps how breast cancer grows in previously unseen detail, and highlights how the cells around the tumour may be the key to controlling the spread of disease. The new technology can trace which populations of breast cancer cells are responsible for the spread of the disease, and for the first time highlights how the location of cancer cells could be as important as mutations in tumor growth The new study is…

Toxicologists from the University of Konstanz have found that the protein p53 continuously protects our cells from tumorigenesis by coordinating important metabolic processes that stabilize their genomes.

Why do metastases often only appear after the original tumor has been surgically removed? Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) and the Mannheim Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University have now published an explanation for this phenomenon. They were able to identify a messenger substance of the cancer cells that locally promotes the growth of the primary tumor.

Researchers of the University of Freiburg have discovered a previously unknown function of septins in defending cells against dangerous hospital pathogens.

Because of their highly active metabolism, many tumors are susceptible to a special type of cell death, ferroptosis. Nevertheless, cancer cells often manage to escape this fate. Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center have now discovered a new mechanism by which normal as well as cancer cells protect themselves against ferroptosis.

Tuberculosis is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, with an estimated 1.4 million deaths and ten million people infected annually. Resistant and multidrug-resistant (MDR) variants of the tuberculosis pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis pose a major threat to tuberculosis control and global health.

Bakteriocins - 24/05/2022

New antibiotic alternatives from soil bacteria

Bacteria are not the greatest of friends among themselves: many release antimicrobial substances into their environment in order to gain an advantage in their ecological niche. Researchers at the University of Ulm are making use of such bacteriocins by creating a genetically modified soil bacterium that can be used as a biotechnological platform organism to produce alternatives to antibiotics in pure form and in large quantities. The fact this…

Certain childhood tumors have an extreme need for amino acids. Scientists at the Hopp Children's Cancer Center Heidelberg (KiTZ), the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the University of Heidelberg, and HI-STEM* gGmbH have now discovered the molecular mechanisms underlying this and how the cancer cells could be turned off.

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is funding a new Emmy Noether junior research group at the DKFZ for six years with a total of around 2 million euros. The scientists and doctors, who are part of the Clinical Cooperation Unit for Pediatric Leukemia at the KiTZ, are using a new procedure to investigate how cancer cells manipulate the formation of proteins to become resistant to cancer drugs.