Press Archive

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.

Mirrored slides now allow significantly sharper images / 20x better resolution than an ordinary light microscope - Scientists at the University of Würzburg have been able to boost current super-resolution microscopy by a novel tweak. They coated the glass cover slip as part of the sample carrier with tailor-made biocompatible nanosheets that create a "mirror effect". This method shows that localizing single emitters in front of a metal-dielectric coating leads to higher precision, brightness and contrast in Single Molecule Localization Microscopy (SMLM). The study was published in the Nature journal "Light: Science and Applications".

Researchers show how toxins of the bacterium Clostridium difficile get into cells in the gut

A new Collaborative Research Center will start in July with a total funding of nearly 14 million euros, headed by the German Institute for Experimental Biomedicine in Würzburg. The aim is to decode the complex and insufficiently understood functions of platelets, the so-called thrombocytes. The scientists hope to use these findings to gain new insights into platelet research which allow better treatment of conditions such as heart attack, stroke, acute lung failure and cancer.

Researchers at the University of Würzburg have been able to show how embryos dispose of the life-threatening leftovers of egg maturation.