Software-optimized production processes for BioNTech Back in 2019, BioNTech was far from a household name. Nowadays, however, the pharmaceutical company from Mainz is world-famous for developing and producing Comirnaty©, a COVID-19 vaccine. The company’s original aim was to develop personalized mRNA-based treatments to fight cancer – a goal that it continues to pursue to this day. Since 2016, a research team at the Fraunhofer ITWM has collaborated with BioNTech to optimize the planning, management and documentation of their production processes….

Cells have an efficient waste disposal system. Proxidrugs utilize this system as part of new treatments for cancer, infections and Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology ITMP are working with partners to develop this new drug class. Dr. Aimo Kannt, Head of Drug Discovery and Preclinical Research at Fraunhofer ITMP in Frankfurt, is currently researching a new class of drugs with sustained efficacy. “Traditional drugs work by binding to pathogenic proteins and blocking or…

Pain is an important alarm system that alerts us to tissue damage, but is expected to subside as injuries heal, but many patients experience persistent pain long after recovery. Now, a new study published in Science Translational Medicine points to possible new treatments for chronic pain with a surprising link to lung cancer. The work was spearheaded by an international team of researchers at IMBA – Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Harvard Medical School, and…

May lead to better treatments for deadliest form of lung cancer. An experimental combination of two drugs halts the progression of small cell lung cancer, the deadliest form of lung cancer, according to a study in mice from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Grenoble Alpes University in Grenoble, France, and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. One of the drugs, cyclophosphamide, is an outdated chemotherapy drug once used to treat small…

Vaccinated people who were infected by the first Omicron subvariants have four times greater protection than vaccinated people who were not infected. These results are part of a study that will be published today in the prestigious scientific journal New England Journal of Medicine*. The study published now was led by Luís Graça, group leader at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes (iMM) and Full Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, and by Manuel Carmo…

In the food processing industry, closed production systems are cleaned according to strictly defined specifications – and often applying unnecessarily large quantities of chemicals. A fiber-optical fluorescence sensor developed at Fraunhofer IPM measures deposits in closed containers in a minimally invasive manner, thus enabling cleaning processes to be controlled and adapted to the actual degree of fouling. In the food processing industry, high hygiene requirements apply. The cleaning of production facilities must be completely reliable in order to guarantee the…

Polymer-based membranes developed at KAUST could enable greener and cheaper industrial separation approaches. Their stability and selectivity can be tuned by thermal crosslinking to separate simple hydrocarbon mixtures and complex crude oil fractions. Separation processes, such as distillation and evaporation, are central to the chemical, pharmaceutical and petrochemical industries, but they are also energy intensive, expensive and polluting. Each year, crude oil refineries consume about one percent of the total energy used worldwide, and some refineries can even release up…

Preeclampsia is a condition that affects the placenta during pregnancy and is dangerous for both the fetus and the mother. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, Inserm and the CNRS have proposed a new therapy, tested in two rodent models, that corrects the defects identified in placental cells, and restores placental and fetal weight. The treatment successfully lowers blood pressure in the mother and resolves the characteristic preeclampsia symptoms of excess protein in urine and cardiovascular abnormalities. The research was published…

What we perceive might sometimes reflect the outcome of a value-based decision-making process, a new analysis of the literature suggests. Although visual perception might seem as easy as just opening our eyes and reporting what is out there, the underlying computations are surprisingly complex. One of the more revealing ways to study these computations is by using inputs that are ambiguous or even impossible under normal circumstances (for instance with radically different pictures seen by the two eyes). Faced with…

A UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country team has successfully produced starch-based pharmaceutical tablets by means of 3D printing. Traditional methods produce medicines with specific parameters, but in many cases without meeting the individual needs of patients. In fact, conventional medicines tend to be based on adult doses, so paediatric and elderly patients require doses tailored to their age. What is more, certain groups of patients also need specific dosage form alternatives to facilitate the oral administration of drugs. In this…

… play important roles in geological and environmental processes. Minerals are the fundamental components of Earth. Microbes occupy the majority of the tree of life. In near surficial environments, minerals and microbes co-exist and interact. The studies of mineral-microbe interactions have blossomed in the last two decades, because such interactions drive major geological events and substantially determine the habitability of the Earth. A research team led by Dr. Hailiang Dong from China University of Geosciences (Beijing) has critically reviewed the…

Stony corals use a refined built-in ventilation system to protect themselves from environmental stressors. Coral reefs are not only one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on our planet; they are also among the most economically important ones. “For example, they’re extremely important for fishing and tourism,” says Moritz Holtappels. “And as wave breakers, they provide essential services for coastal management.” Accordingly, the experts are very concerned about the current status of these valuable undersea cities, which are simultaneously facing a…

Expected to improve results for meniscal reconstruction surgery. The knee meniscus is an important tissue that protects the joint; if the meniscus is damaged—by sports injury or aging–it often does not heal on its own. There are two surgical methods for treating a torn meniscus: repair with a suture and graft or removal. Because removing the meniscus leads to further damage, the graft surgery is preferred for meniscus reconstruction. In countries where donated meniscal allograft is unavailable the patient’s own…

Success in rapid and simultaneous identification of multiple types of food poisoning bacteria by color differences in scattered light from metals. Osaka Metropolitan University scientists have developed a simple, rapid method to simultaneously identify multiple food poisoning bacteria, based on color differences in the scattered light by nanometer-scaled organic metal nanohybrid structures (NHs) that bind via antibodies to those bacteria. This method is a promising tool for rapidly detecting bacteria at food manufacturing sites and thereby improving food safety. The…

The findings may help scientists develop more resilient plants to help withstand climate change. Plants lengthen and bend to secure access to sunlight. Despite observing this phenomenon for centuries, scientists do not fully understand it. Now, Salk scientists have discovered that two plant factors—the protein PIF7 and the growth hormone auxin—are the triggers that accelerate growth when plants are shaded by canopy and exposed to warm temperatures at the same time. The findings, published in Nature Communications on August 29,…

Researchers at the University of Bonn are evaluating a new imaging technique for the diagnosis of posterior uveitis. An estimated five to ten percent of blindness worldwide is caused by the rare inflammatory eye disease uveitis. Posterior uveitis in particular is often associated with severe disease progression and the need for immunosuppressive therapy. In posterior uveitis, inflammation occurs in the retina and in the underlying choroid that supplies it with nutrients. Researchers at the Ophthalmology Department at the University of…