Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME

Welcome to the Fraunhofer IME. We conduct research in the field of applied life sciences from a molecular level to entire ecosystems and are your partner for contract research in the areas of pharmacy, medicine, chemistry, agriculture, as well as environmental and consumer protection. Our research and development portfolio is focused on industry, small and medium enterprises and on the public sector.

The overarching goal of our research activities at Fraunhofer IME is the development and use of novel technologies for diagnosis and therapy of human and animal diseases as well as the protection of crop plants and food sources.

Boehringer Ingelheim and Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME announce their newly formed collaboration that aims to provide novel, microbial-based natural products for development of next generation animal health products fighting parasitic diseases. The research project will capitalize on a well-characterized microbial strain collection from Fraunhofer, in major parts isolated from invertebrate associated environments.

Dr. Philip Gribbon has been invited by TECAN to share Fraunhofer IME's recent efforts to identify small molecule therapeutics for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection in TECAN's free webinar series on "Drug repurposing approaches to fast-track the development of new therapies for COVID-19".

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft combines the expertise of 23 separate Fraunhofer facilities to develop new development and production technologies for innovative cell and gene therapeutics, as well as vaccines, in the “Production for Intelligent Medicine” innovation cluster. Fraunhofer IME will contribute its expertise in protein production for nutrient media, the cultivation of therapeutic stem cells and macrophages as well as respective quality controls, the preclinical development of therapeutics and the automation of these processes.

German Fraunhofer IME and Japanese Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation intensify their scientific co-operation in regenerative medicine with industrial partner. As part of their long-term co-operation the Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation at Kobe (FBRI),  Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME at Hamburg and a Japanese pharmaceutical company have concluded a Joint Research Agreement on Drug Discovery for Dementia.  

Researchers of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME together with the Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen analysed the venom of wasp spiders and discovered a subset of novel biomolecules. Their results have recently been published in "Biomolecules".

The University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME want to pave the way for new therapies against multiple sclerosis. The aim of a joint project is to characterize a target protein and further develop suitable drug candidates that specifically prevent the injury of nerve cells, which is responsible for the progressive disability in multiple sclerosis. The project is funded with 1.2 million Euro by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of a program for the validation of disease-related target structures.

The work conducted by an interdisciplinary research team from the Center of Hybrid Nanostructures (University ofHamburg) and ScreeningPort of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME in Hamburg made it to the cover oft he journal Biomaterials Science. The researchers cultivated electrophysiologically mature neurons derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells on free-standing nanowire arrays. This nanowire set-up enables bidirectional communication with neural circuits with enhanced spatiotemporal precision.