Press Archive

The previously largely unknown molecule bridging integrator 2 (BIN2) plays a central role in platelet activation, as researchers from Würzburg have now shown in a joint project of the DFG Collaborative Research Centre / Transregio 240. This finding provides indications of starting points for drug development against thrombosis, heart attack and stroke and was published in the renowned journal The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Würzburg research group prints the first biologically correct 3D model of the SARS-CoV-2 virus

Using a newly developed method, researchers from the University of Würzburg, in cooperation with the University Hospital of Würzburg, were able to identify thousands of special peptides on the surface of cells for the first time. They were able to show that these so-called cryptic peptides mark a significant proportion of tumor cells. These findings could provide a new starting point for cancer immunotherapy and were published in the renowned journal Cancer Immunology Research.

Dr. Andrea Thorn, a structural biologist from Würzburg, is leading an international coronavirus research network. The results of her work are important for developing vaccines and drugs.

On 23th March 2020, Professor Katrin Heinze officially started her new “Chair of Molecular Microscopy" at the Medical Faculty of the Julius Maximilians University (JMU) Würzburg, Germany. The physicist will boost the development of precise microscopy methods for biomedical imaging and spectroscopy.

A team of researchers lead by Helmholtz Zentrum München and the University of Würzburg identified an enzyme as a novel and strong inhibitor of ferroptosis, the iron dependent form of cell death: ferroptosis suppressor protein-1, short FSP1. This protein is expressed in a variety of cancer cell lines and therefore represents an attractive drug target for cancer treatment. The results were published in the journal Nature.

Researchers at the University of Würzburg and the Spanish Cancer Research Centre have gained new insights into the pathogen that causes tuberculosis. The work published in Nature provides the basis for a new approach in antibiotic therapy.

Visualizing specific structures over background fluorescence can be challenging. The Wehman lab has developed a labeling technique based on selective degradation that allows super-resolution insights on standard microscopes, improving the imaging of specific proteins, organelles, and cells in many model systems. The project has been published in Nature Communications.

Scientists at the University Würzburg and University Hospital of Würzburg found that megakaryocytes act as “bouncers” and thus modulate bone marrow niche properties and cell migration dynamics. The study was published in July in the Journal “Haematologica”.

The structures of proteins, RNA and DNA are the key to our understanding of life. These structures are measured with X-ray or neutron diffraction, but the data are rarely perfect. Researchers at the University of Würzburg are now developing a new software to analyse this data.

PhD student Hardikkumar Jetani has a round number to his name: he is the 500th doctoral researcher in the Graduate School of Life Sciences (GSLS) to successfully defend his thesis.

Researchers from the Rudolf Virchow Center of the University of Würzburg (JMU) have solved the structures of the cancer-promoting enzymes USP25 and USP28, and identified significant differences in their activities. Both enzymes promote the growth of various tumors. The results were published in the journal Molecular Cell and could benefit towards the development of new, low-side-effects anticancer drugs.

Our RVZ group leader Dr. Sonja Lorenz has been invited to give a talk at the prestigious EMBO Gold Medallists Meeting 2019 in Singapore.

Researchers at the Rudolf Virchow Center of the University of Würzburg have unveiled the molecular effectiveness of artemisinins. These new findings have the potential to advance the development of medicines for diseases such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and epilepsy. The study was published in the journal Neuron.