Biomedical Science

A long tradition of cooperation connects the Department of Virology in Essen with Chinese virologists in Wuhan, China (Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Tongji Medical School, Wuhan University). The successful cooperation is set to continue within the SFB Transregio 60 Collaborative Research Centre.
The research groups of Professors Tim Clausen (IMP Vienna, Austria), Helen Saibil (Birkbeck College London, GB) and Michael Ehrmann (UDE) gained novel insights into the mode of operation of the multifunctional protein DegP. DegP is involved in important processes of protein quality control within the cell. The data, achieved in atomic resolution, should help to combat bacterial infections more effectively in the future.
The Developmental Biology research group, headed by Prof. Andrea Vortkamp, is concerned with explaining the cause of human skeletal disease. Together with researchers from the Huntsman Cancer Institute (University of Utah, USA) and the Hughes Medical Institute (University of Iowa, USA), they were able for the first time to observe in a new mouse model of exostosis the early stages in the formation of these primarily benign bone tumours.
Prof. Dieter Jäger from the Faculty of Engineering is collaborating with the University of Bochum on the development of an innovative laser for OCT (optical coherence tomography) in biology and medicine.