Press Releases

Full classrooms, travel on public transportation, relaxed shopping in malls – since the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, these are not things to be taken for granted. In order to explore how virus transmission by aerosols and droplets can be avoided, seven Helmholtz centers, three universities and numerous business partners have come together in the CORAERO project which is receiving around six million euro from the Helmholtz Association’s Initiative and Networking Fund for a period of 4.5 years, starting in summer 2021. A research team at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has been granted 1.2 million euro for experimental and numerical analyses of aerosol dispersion indoors and the development of special air purification technologies to reduce virus transmission indoors.

Power-to-liquid Plant with Optimized Reactor Design at Energy Lab 2.0 - Synthesis Gas Production from CO2 Combined with Fuel Production

Power-to-liquid Plant with Optimized Reactor Design at Energy Lab 2.0 - Synthesis Gas Production from CO2 Combined with Fuel Production

Under normal conditions, pure water is an almost perfect insulator. Water only develops metallic properties under extreme pressure, such as exists deep inside of large planets. Now, an international collaboration has used a completely different approach to produce metallic water and documented the phase transition at BESSY II. The study is published now in Nature.

The Center for Advanced Systems Understanding (CASUS) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has joined PIONEER, a 12.8m euro project funded by the public-private partnership Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 (IMI2). The HZDR is PIONEER's 36th member. The European consortium aims to transform the field of prostate cancer care by unlocking the potential of big data and big data analytics.

Tin halide perovskites are currently considered the best alternative to their lead-containing counterparts, which are, however, still significantly less efficient and stable. Now, a team led by Prof. Antonio Abate from HZB has analysed the chemical processes in the perovskite precursor solution and the fluoride compounds in detail. Using a clever combination of measurement methods at BESSY II and with NMR at the Humboldt-University Berlin, they were able to show that fluoride prevents the oxidation of tin and leads to a more homogeneous film formation with fewer defects, increasing the quality of the semiconductor layer.

Powerful, compact, and affordable batteries are needed for the energy transition. Groups at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) led by Prof. Yan Lu, Dr. Ingo Manke, and Dr. Sebastian Risse are conducting this research. They are investigating and developing novel types of electrode materials based on sulphur and silicon. Risse is now also coordinating a large project involving teams from HZB as well as from the University of Potsdam near Berlin, the Technische Universität Berlin, the Technische Universität Dresden and the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS Dresden.

Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center and Heidelberg University Hospital have for the first time been able to delay the development of hereditary colorectal cancer with a protective vaccination. Mice with a hereditary predisposition to colorectal cancer survived significantly longer after vaccination than unvaccinated animals. Combining the vaccination with an anti-inflammatory drug increased the protective effect.

A newly engineered organoid on chip platform mimics robustly key features of human pancreas development. This is a stepping stone towards reliable diagnostic solutions for early-stage pancreatic cancer. The study was carried out by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Helmholtz Zentrum München, the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Ulm University Medical Center.

Science, Industry, Politics, and the Society Will Meet under the Heading “The Human Being in the Center of Learning Systems”