Between conservative and surgical intervention - 04/12/2025

Innovative tubular prosthesis enables reversible treatment for type 2 diabetes

Severe obesity is considered a major cause of type 2 diabetes. Building on gastric bypass surgery, the Mannheim-based company Trans-Duodenal Concepts has developed an endoscopically implantable tubular prosthesis that lines the duodenum. This both reduces food intake and can restore normal blood sugar metabolism.

Inside cells, RNAs and proteins form biomolecular condensates. These droplets are essential for organizing cellular life, yet why some RNAs cluster more readily than others has remained unclear. Disruptions in condensate formation are linked to developmental defects, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. Researchers at KIT have now identified a new class of RNA called smOOPs and gained a better understanding of how biomolecular condensates form

It has only recently become known that two parallel systems of blood formation exist in the body. Researchers at the DKFZ have developed a method to examine both systems separately in mice for the first time. Their surprising finding: the majority of immune cells do not originate from classic blood stem cells in the bone marrow, but from precursor cells that are independent of blood stem cells and are already present in the embryo.

CELLnROLL is a spin-off from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. The newly founded company develops a high-precision microrobotic-based cell sorting system to help clinicians make fast, affordable, and informed decisions for cancer diagnostics. Now, the project has received €865,000 in funding through the EXIST Transfer of Research program, a funding program initiated by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

Physician and cancer researcher Mirco Julian Friedrich from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the stem cell research institute HI-STEM*, and Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD) has received two awards for two independent research projects: his novel approach to preventing liver metastases and his research on T cells, which he modifies to better protect them from attacks by natural killer cells.