Press releases

Targeted, efficient and with few side effects: A new method for combating periodontitis could render the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics superfluous. It was developed and tested for the first time by a team from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI and Periotrap Pharmaceuticals GmbH, a Fraunhofer IZI spin-off. The aim is to neutralise only bacteria that cause periodontitis while sparing harmless bacteria. The study appeared in the "Journal of Biological Chemistry".

Saxony-based consortium comes out on top in the BMBF Clusters4Future initiative. In a digital press conference held by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) on February 3, 2021, the SaxoCell research consortium was announced as one of the clusters selected for funding. The consortium comprises experts from the TU Dresden, Leipzig University, Chemnitz Hospital and the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology. Over the next three years, the project partners will collaborate with partners from academia and industry to provide novel cell and gene therapies for previously incurable diseases.

Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI and Klinikum Chemnitz gGmbH (Chemnitz hospital) expand cooperation

A molecular biological, chip-based rapid test for the diagnosis of the eye infection trachoma developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI has proven promising in first studies. The results of the study carried out together with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, Tanzania, have now been published in the journal "Parasites & Vectors". The development of the DjinniChip was supported by the ClearTrachoma project of the non-profit organization Task Force for Global Health in a program of the Coalition for Operational Research on Neglected Tropical Diseases (COR-NTD).

The first Fraunhofer Solution Days will take place digitally from October 26 to 29, 2020. The online event of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is dedicated to the four topics health, digital economy, plant and mechanical engineering and mobility. The Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI is participating with various exhibits and lectures, particularly in the field of health.

A project team from the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI and Lipocalyx GmbH (today: BioNTech Delivery Technologies GmbH) has now been able to prove that viromers are a suitable carrier material for messenger RNA (mRNA). In studies, the viromers developed by Lipocalyx proved to be a suitable therapeutic option for mRNA delivery in the treatment of a model for inflammatory diseases. The results were published in "Scientific Reports", an open access journal of the Nature Publishing Group.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology (IZI) will, in future, cooperate with Nomad Bioscience GmbH in developing anti-bacterial and anti-viral medications. The Fraunhofer IZI Department of Drug Design and Target Validation based in Halle (Saale) and the company with headquarters in Munich concluded a relevant research and development agreement in July 2020.

As a pioneer in applied research, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft brings together the expertise of 23 separate Fraunhofer facilities to develop new development and production technologies for innovative cell and gene therapeutics, as well as vaccines, in the “Production for Intelligent Medicine” innovation cluster. As a first step of the project, a concept for a modular pilot plant for the automatic production of these therapeutics is to be developed combining both Industry 4.0 and Health 4.0.

With over 1.2 million people affected in Germany alone and over 50 million people worldwide, Alzheimer's disease, also referred to simply as Alzheimer's, is one of the greatest medical and social challenges of our time. Due to pathological changes in the brain, patients become increasingly forgetful and disoriented as the disease progresses. In the worst cases, even close relatives are no longer recognized and simple household tasks can no longer be carried out independently. This means care is needed for those affected. Despite intensive research, Alzheimer's disease is still considered incurable today. Researchers at the University of Göttingen and the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology Leipzig-Halle have described a promising approach to treating Alzheimer's disease. The results have been published in the journal Biochemistry.

Led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI in Leipzig, as well as the Department of Urology of the University Hospital and Faculty of Medicine of the Technische Universität Dresden, a team of researchers has succeeded, for the first time, in identifying prognostic biomarkers for prostate cancer which are based on transcriptome-wide gene sequencing. The description of the developed gene signature for the assessment of prostate cancer after surgery has now been published in the renowned “European Urology” journal.