Press

This year’s theme 'Shaping history, feeding the future' recognizes the potato's journey - from its domestication in the Andes, to its global dissemination following the Columbian Exchange, to the Irish Potato Famine, and finally to its current status as a staple food for millions. It also acknowledges the opportunities and challenges that exist across the potato's value chain for our nutrition today and in the future.

On May 12, the closing event of the joint project “Mittendrin” (“Right in the middle of it”) took place, in which Fraunhofer IME, together with the City of Aachen and three other partners from research and industry, is testing the integration of vertical farming in urban buildings for efficient and resource-saving food supply in cities. A practical test setup with the OrbiLoop® system developed at Fraunhofer IME in a double-skin glass facade was presented to the public for the first time during the event.

The United Nations designated 12 May the International Day of Plant Health to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect biodiversity and the environment, and boost economic development. To feed the world by 2050, we need a 50 percent increase in agricultural production. Protecting agricultural crops from pest outbreaks is paramount. As each year, we lose up to 40 percent of crops, worth 200 billion euros, to plant pests and diseases.

A recent multidisciplinary study led by Dr. Alexandra Furch (University of Jena) in collaboration with apl. Prof. Gundula Noll and Prof. Dirk Prüfer (Fraunhofer IME, Münster), along with further experts, explores how plants convert pathogen perception into electrical signals, triggering local and systemic defense responses. Surprisingly, the evidence indicates that sieve element occlusion proteins, previously thought to be mainly involved in phloem sealing, also contribute to the signal transmission process.

The Fraunhofer IME in Giessen organises networking meetings between science, politics and industry to promote the sustainable and energy-efficient use of insects for the circular bioeconomy.

On the 29th and 30th of October, the joint Fraunhofer IME PhD seminar took place at our Institute Branch for Bioresources in Giessen, where we had the pleasure of welcoming 34 PhD students from our sites in Aachen and Schmallenberg.

As venomous animals, spiders use their chemical arsenal for prey capture or defence. Small neurotoxins target the central nervous system of their victims. While the toxins are intensively investigated, scientists at the LOEWE Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics (TBG) in Hesse, Germany, have turned their attention to the enzymes also contained in the complex venom cocktail. They discovered a large, previously overlooked diversity of these proteins that facilitate biochemical reactions. According to the researchers, these could be of great value for bioeconomic applications.

A collaborative study between researchers from the Fraunhofer IME and the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research has shown how a single metabolite can render bacteria toxic to plants under high salt conditions. Their findings may have important implications for agriculture and plant health in changing climates.

Today, on May 12th, we join the global community in recognizing the International Day of Plant Health.

In October 2023, the EU project "SUNGATE" commenced under the coordination of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME and in collaboration with 11 partners from research and industry. SUNGATE aims to engineer a novel, circular, sustainable and cost-efficient bio-hybrid technology to achieve the highly-efficient and scalable production of solar fuels in systems ranging from portable temporary installations to larger-scale solutions.