Company profile - 09/01/2019

HQS Quantum Simulations for industrial quantum mechanics applications

The door to the quantum world is opening wider and wider. Behind it is a whole new view of materials and molecules. Quantum mechanics applications not only benefit science, they also offer huge economic potential. The Karlsruhe start-up HQS Quantum Simulations is playing a pioneering role in quantum simulations for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

Article - 30/01/2019

candidum – computer-assisted enzyme design

Industry has been using enzymes for over a hundred years. While it initially had to content itself with natural enzymes, it is now increasingly possible to design tailor-made biocatalysts with specific properties. The start-up company candidum GmbH from Stuttgart promises to achieve this faster than ever before - mostly thanks to accelerated virtual screening.

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has announced the first pivotal decisions for the "Clusters of Excellence" funding line as part of the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments. The University of Stuttgart has been given the green light for two new cluster initiatives.

Cyber Valley researchers have created medical educational tools that could potentially train the surgeons of the future, much like flight simulators train pilots. The team developed a range of artificial organ phantoms to serve as training platforms for surgeons. Thanks to the structured data of experienced medical professionals, a quantitative and objective assessment of a trainee’s skills can be assessed in real time.

Computer scientists from the Cluster of Excellence Collective Behaviour developed a model, that explains how collective scenarios such as diseases may proceed.

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.

Stem cell therapy for regenerating intervertebral discs - 16/07/2020

Ulm’s simulator has Europe’s back

Back pain is often caused by intervertebral disc disorders. Much has already been tried and is available to help patients. Despite extensive progress, there is still no surefire recipe for success. iPSpine, an EU-funded project to which researchers from Ulm are contributing interdisciplinary engineering and biomedical expertise, aims to design a novel therapy for back pain based on intervertebral disc regeneration.

Drugs consist of molecules developed in the drug laboratory that bind to their target, usually a protein, and thus exert their effect. The actual duration of binding of a drug molecule to its target protein varies depending on the drug. The lifetime of the drug-target complex can play a critical role in the efficacy of a drug, as a long residence time at the target can be crucial for the drug's action in some cases.

Scientists have long sought ways to simulate the neural networks in the brain with computers in order to understand how it works. Now, researchers have combined new measurements of the wiring diagrams of the fruit fly with artificial intelligence methods to build a neural network that can do what few thought possible: To predict the activity of individual neurons without making a single measurement in a living brain.

SICOS BW GmbH - 18/06/2020

High-performance computing and data analytics to combat coronavirus

In an epidemic, data exchange and the use of innovative technologies are essential to be able to act effectively and quickly against the infection. High-performance computers and data analytics make a valuable contribution to this. SICOS BW is a promising solution centre that bridges the gap from numerical simulation, big data and AI to companies in the medical technology sector.

Wearable medical devices, such as soft exoskeletons that provide support for stroke patients or controlled drug delivery patches, have to be made of materials that can adapt intelligently and autonomously to the wearer's movements and to changing environmental conditions. These are the type of autonomously switchable polymer materials that have recently been developed by researchers at the University of Stuttgart and the University of…

Quantum Technology Ulm - 08/04/2021

Diamonds for life sciences innovations

The world's first commercial quantum computer,’IBM Q System One’, is now in operation in Ehningen near Stuttgart. This is a major leap forward in quantum technology in Germany. It marks the point at which conventional computers reach their limits. The University of Ulm is involved in three of six collaborative projects being funded by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and Housing Construction.

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…

Resource efficiency, time and cost savings are essential topics in the textile and apparel industry. The advantages of digital manufacturing apply not only to fashion, but also to medical textiles. To this end, the German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research Denkendorf (DITF) have developed a digital platform that can be used to produce precisely fitting flexible textile orthoses in a resource-, time- and cost-efficient manner.

More than seven million people in Germany suffer from diabetes. At the same time, research into drugs to treat this widespread disease is still difficult. Scientists led by Prof. Dr. Peter Loskill from the NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute and the Faculty of Medicine of the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen have now developed a technique that significantly improves the view at the molecular and cell biological level in the pancreas.

Researchers at University of Galway, the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS) Heidelberg University, and Heidelberg University Hospital have created digital babies to better understand infants’ health in their critical first 180 days of life. The international team created computer models that simulate the unique metabolic processes of each baby. The models can help to better understand rare metabolic diseases.

Biochip systems - 02/09/2020

Miniature organs with great potential

Dr. Peter Loskill and his team at the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart and the University Hospital of Tübingen are developing what is known as an "organ-on-a-chip" (OoC). An OoC is a microfluidic system that simulates small functional units of organ tissue. OoCs can be used in different ways: in basic and pharmaceutical research as well as in clinical research and application, where they might render many animal experiments…

During the growth and development of living organisms, different types of cells must come into contact with each other in order to form tissues and organs together. A small team working with Prof. Dr. Anne Classen of the Excellence Cluster CIBSS of the University of Freiburg has discovered that complex changes in form, or morphogenesis, during development are driven exclusively via the affinity of cells to each other.

Prof. Dr. Harald Gießen from the Institute of Physics (4) as well as Prof. Dr. Alois Herkommer and Dr. Simon Thiele from the Institute of Applied Optics at the University of Stuttgart received the Gips Schüle Research Award 2021 on October 19, 2021. The researchers were awarded the prize, which is valued at EUR 50,000.

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.

How do tumors react to a certain therapeutic approach? Knowing this before the start of a therapy would be of enormous value for people suffering from cancer as well as for the doctors treating them. Researchers have now made this very observation possible for the CAR-T cell therapy. This allows us to individually investigate how exactly these tumor cells react to the planned therapy.

Why 3,000 bars are needed to take a comprehensive look at a protein: Konstanz researchers Frederic Berner and Michael Kovermann present a new high-pressure spectroscopy method to unravel the properties of proteins' native structures.

Booster for neutrophil granulocytes - 27/10/2021

Acetate supports immune cells to fight against sepsis

Blood poisoning is the most dangerous complication of bacterial infections and often leads to death. Researchers at the Interfaculty Institute of Microbiology and Infection Medicine at the University of Tübingen have now identified acetate as a potent agent for stimulating innate immune system cells, supporting their ability to destroy bacteria.

A new network has been set up in Baden-Württemberg aimed at reducing animal experiments as well as further improving animal welfare. It combines new approaches and measures at the state’s biomedical research locations, which are expected to limit stress in laboratory animals and steadily reduce the number of animals used in research in line with the 3R principles of Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement.

In the field of optogenetics, scientists investigate the activity of neurons in the brain using light. A team led by Prof. Dr. Ilka Diester and Dr. David Eriksson from the Optophysiology Laboratory at the University of Freiburg has developed a new method to simultaneously conduct laminar recordings, multifiber stimulations, 3D optogenetic stimulation, connectivity inference, and behavioral quantification on brains.