Press

Fraunhofer IME participates in the EU-IMI project imSAVAR as part of the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence for Immune-Mediated Diseases CIMD to develop innovative model systems for the evaluation of immunomodulatory therapeutics.

11 European partners, among them the Fraunhofer IME, today announced that they are launching the new IMI project COMBINE (The Collaboration for Prevention and Treatment of Multi-Drug Resistant Bacterial Infections), under the IMI AMR Accelerator Programme. COMBINE will support projects in the AMR Accelerator with effective management, communication, and data capture capabilities, and carry out research to strengthen the scientific basis in the AMR field.

Fraunhofer IME ScreeningPort, the University of Hamburg and PerkinElmer, Inc. announce the start of the trilateral collaboration project, inCELLphosTAG, which is funded by a newly established Fraunhofer-DFG collaboration program and aims to develop an assay technology that enables the investigation of important cellular processes and drug targets in relevant cell systems.

Worldwide active and regionally enrooted - a story of success was celebrated. Shortly before completion of the new center of the instute, Fraunhofer IME celebrated the 60-year anniversary of the Fraunhofer location Schmallenberg-Grafschaft with 160 invited guests from science, industry and politics on October 29, 2019. Beside a view on the relevance of the scientific work in Schmallenberg in the past and presence, an outlook of themes for the future was given. The realisation is enabled by investions of about 30 Mio € by the Federal Republic Germany (D), the Federal State North-Rhine Westfalia (NRW) and own resources. The emerging new laboratory building could be viewed by the guests.

For his presentation „Screening insecticides for molecular fingerprints in zebrafish embryos as an aquatic non-target model - a kick off study“ Hannes Reinwald was awarded the young academics award 2019 at this year’s SETAC GLB conference in Landau. His contribution received the first place for the best presentation. Hannes Reinwald performs his PhD studies on the identification of molecular signatures of pesticides in aquatic non-target organisms in the Attract group Eco’n’OMICs at Fraunhofer IME in Schmallenberg.

Yesterday, 16 participants represented the location Schmallenberg of Fraunhofer IME at the HSK-Firmenlauf running event in Meschede. Wearing Fraunhofer running shirts specially created for this occasion, they accomplished the 5 km course through the city center of Meschede. Though our fastest finishers made it within 20 minutes, the focus of the event was on fun and fitness. Despite the rainy weather, the event was a great success and we are already planning participating in future running events.

New Partnership will advance three antibacterial programmes as part of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a public-private European R&D consortium. The new GNA NOW project, led by Evotec SE and managed by Lygature, will work on the development of novel antibacterial agents to battle antimicrobial resistance in gram-negative bacteria. Fraunhofer IME is one of the 11 beneficiaries.

One year after the controversial decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the regulation of crop plants developed by new molecular breeding techniques, scientists are once again taking the floor. Undersigners from more than 120 European plant and life science research centres, including Fraunhofer IME, address the open statement to the newly elected European Parliament and the European Commission. The aim is to secure the potential of new molecular breeding techniques for sustainable agriculture and food production.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME coordinates the research project RESET-ME, selected for funding by the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR). In this project, together with partners from Germany, Latvia, Finland, and Italy, adjuvants for antimicrobial therapies are developed targeting an intrinsic resistance mechanism in Gram-negative bacteria.

Safe diagnoses of diseases, identification of multidrug-resistant germs, ­detection of beginning epidemics at an early stage or detection of toxins and pathogens in drinking water and food in even the lowest concentrations – these are major challenges and goals of current research programs. One of the most promising tools for these tasks are novel and considerably improved biosensors. The project “BioSensing” of the Fraunhofer Institutes for Silicate Research ISC and for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME and the Leiden University, Institute of Physics aims to overcome the limits of modern biosensors with the help of quantum technology.