Press release - 01/10/2024 Reporter Skin: In-vitro Skin Makes Cell Reaction to Test Substance Measurable in Real Time At the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB, a three-dimensional skin model has now been set up for the first time that directly displays the skin's reaction to substances: The reporter skin. Thanks to the built-in reporter, the cellular response can be measured precisely and quickly – using a living model.
Press release - 25/09/2024 How do rare genetic variants affect health? AI provides more accurate predictions Whether we are predisposed to particular diseases depends to a large extent on the countless variants in our genome. However in the case of genetic variants the influence on the presentation of certain pathological traits has been difficult to determine. Researchers have introduced an algorithm based on deep learning that can predict the effects of rare genetic variants.
Chronic inflammatory bowel diseases - 25/09/2024 Proinflammatory regulatory T lymphocytes as a therapeutic target in Crohn's disease Chronic inflammatory bowel diseases are very stressful for those affected and increase the risk of bowel cancer. PD Dr. Robyn Laura Kosinsky from the Bosch Health Campus in Stuttgart, together with researchers from the USA, identified disfunctional regulatory T cells as important drivers of inflammation in Crohn's disease. They also found that with the help of an epigenetically active drug, it was possible to restore the cells’ original…
Press release - 19/09/2024 Quality standards for looking into the tumor genome 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.
Press release - 11/09/2024 Researchers combine the power of artificial intelligence and the wiring diagram of a brain to predict brain cell activity 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.
BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg publishes first results of a new WifOR study - 11/09/2024 Industrial healthcare industry in Baden-Württemberg: gross value added of more than 19 billion euros The industrial healthcare sector (iGW) plays a central role in the economy in Baden-Württemberg. In 2021, the sector generated a direct gross value added of 19.6 billion euros, which corresponds to around a third (32.6%) of the entire regional healthcare industry. Of 96.3%, almost all of the healthcare sectors's exports in the state in 2021 came from the iGW. These are the findings of a new study conducted on behalf of BIOPRO…
Press release - 09/09/2024 New Molecular Engineering Technique allows for complex Organoids A new molecular engineering technique can precisely influence the development of organoids. Microbeads made of specifically folded DNA are used to release growth factors or other signal molecules inside the tissue structures. This gives rise to considerably more complex organoids that imitate the respective tissues much better and have a more realistic cell mix than before.
Press release - 03/09/2024 NMR Spectroscopy: A Faster Way to Determine the “Sense of Rotation” of Molecules Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Voxalytic GmbH developed a new method that allows, for the first time, to elucidate the chiral structure of molecules – the exact spatial arrangement of the atoms – by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. This important step in the development of new drugs used to be a time-consuming process until now.
Press release - 22/08/2024 Validated targets for personalized cancer immunotherapy Knowledge of the target structures for the immune cells is a basic prerequisite for the development of personalized cancer immunotherapies. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center and the NCT Heidelberg are publishing a sensitive method based on mass spectroscopy to identify such tumor-specific "neoepitopes". The analytical method is designed to detect these low abundance protein fragments and requires minimal amounts of…
Press release - 21/08/2024 A molecular control hub maintains order How are proteins in our cells modified while they are still being synthesized? An international team of researchers from the University of Konstanz, Caltech, and ETH Zurich has deciphered the molecular mechanism of this vital process.
Press release - 13/08/2024 Peptide Boronic Acids: New Prospects for Immunology A cutting-edge chemical process is the first to make it possible to quickly and easily produce modified peptides with boronic acids. As part of this work, scientists managed to synthesize a large number of different biologically active peptide boronic acids and investigate their properties. They open up new possibilities in the young research field of synthetic immunology and could go on to be used primarily in immunotherapy.
Press release - 01/08/2024 Targeted therapy for cancer of unknown primary (Cup) Encouraging results from a large international study led by Heidelberg have recently been published in the journal “Lancet”: The genetic material of cancer cells with unknown tissue of origin contains numerous targets for specific drugs that are already available and have been developed to treat other forms of cancer. These suppressed the disease in CUP patients for significantly longer than chemotherapy.