CeNS: News

CeNS Annual Report 2011 is online!

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 +0200

2011 was again a very stimulating year for all CeNS members with many events, exciting multidisciplinary research projects and publications and a multitude of awards and recognitions!

Read all about it in the recently published CeNS Annual Report 2011!

If you would like to receive a hardcopy of the report, please contact Claudia Kleylein.

Ötzi’s blood detected by CeNS researchers

Wed, 02 May 2012 12:50:00 +0200

His DNA has been decoded; samples from his stomach and intestines have allowed us to reconstruct his very last meal. The circumstances of his violent death appear to have been explained. However, what had, at least thus far, eluded the scientists, was identifying any traces of blood in Ötzi, the 5,000 year old glacier mummy. Examination of his aorta had yielded no results. Yet recently, a team of scientists from Italy and Germany, using nanotechnology, succeeded in locating red blood cells in Ötzi’s wounds, thereby discovering the oldest traces of blood to have been found anywhere in the world.

“Up to now there had been uncertainty about how long blood could survive – let alone what human blood cells from the Chalcolithic period, the Copper Stone Age, might look like.” This is how Albert Zink, Head of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman at the European Academy, Bozen-Bolzano (EURAC) explains the starting point for the investigations which he undertook with Marek Janko and Robert Stark, materials scientists at the Center of Smart Interfaces at Darmstadt Technical University. Even in modern forensic medicine it has so far been almost impossible to determine how long a trace of blood had been present at a crime scene. Scientists Zink, Janko and Stark are convinced that the nanotechnological methods which they tested out on Ötzi’s blood to analyse the microstructure of blood cells and minute blood clots might possibly lead to a break-through in this area.

Press information EURAC
Press information LMU (in German)
Publication "Preservation of 5300 year old blood cells in the Iceman"

Neue «Ötzi»-Überraschung

Tue, 01 May 2012 07:49:00 +0200

5300 Jahre alte Blutkörperchen

DNA origami puts a smart lid on solid-state nanopore sensors

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:09:00 +0200

The latest advance in solid-state nanopore sensors – devices that are made with standard tools of the semiconductor industry yet can offer single-molecule sensitivity for label-free protein screening – expands their bag of tricks through bionanotechnology. Researchers at the Technische Universität München have enhanced the capabilities of solid-state nanopores by fitting them with cover plates made of DNA. The results are published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Press information TUM (in English)
Publication "DNA Origami Gatekeepers for Solid-State Nanopores"

New ScienceCast online: Nanoparticles in Cancer Therapy

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:34:00 +0200

LMU chemist Professor Thomas Bein studies porous nanoparticles, which show great potential as vehicles for the delivery of drugs to specific target cells. Bein hopes that his research will lead to cancer treatments that have minimal side-effects. The research of Professor Bein's group is now presented by a new ScienceCast of LMU Munich.

Watch theLMU ScienceCast (English)

Bundesverdienstkreuz für Patrick Cramer

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:47:00 +0200

Vier Professoren der LMU sind am 16. April vom Bayerischen Wissenschaftsminister Dr. Wolfgang Heubisch mit dem Verdienstkreuz am Bande des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland ausgezeichnet worden: der Biochemiker Patrick Cramer, der evangelische Theologe Friedrich Wilhelm Graf sowie die beiden Mediziner Reinhard Putz und Rüdiger Landgraf.

Professor Cramer wurde unter anderem für seine Arbeiten zum Verständnis der Abschrift von Genen (Transkription), eines elementaren Prozesses des Lebens, ausgezeichnet. Darüber hinaus wurde der Direktor des Genzentrums der LMU für seine großen Leistungen bei der Weiterentwicklung des Standortes ausgezeichnet. Nicht nur, so der Wissenschaftsminister, initiierte er zahlreiche Verbundprojekte, sondern übernahm daneben vielfältige administrative Aufgaben – so stand er in den Jahren 2007 bis 2009 der Fakultät für Chemie und Pharmazie als Dekan vor und ist zudem Mitglied in der Strategiekommission der LMU.

Presseinformation der LMU (deutsch)

Nanotechnology - Improved Batteries with Carbon Nanoparticles

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:52:00 +0200

From smartphones to e-bikes, the number of mobile electronic devices is steadily growing around the world. As a result, there is an increased need for batteries that are small and light, yet powerful. As the potential for the further improvement of lithium-ion batteries is nearly exhausted, experts are now turning to a new and promising power storage device: lithium-sulfur batteries. In an important step toward the further development of this type of battery, a team led by Professor Thomas Bein of LMU Munich and Linda Nazar of Waterloo University in Canada has developed porous carbon nanoparticles that utilize sulfur molecules to achieve the greatest possible efficiency. (Angewandte Chemie, 10 April 2012)

Press information LMU (english)
Publication"Spherical Ordered Mesoporous Carbon Nanoparticles with High Porosity for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries"

Millionenförderung für Forschungsverbund

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 13:59:00 +0200

Mit dem Nachtragshaushalt 2012 steigt der Freistaat Bayern in die Erforschung neuer Konzepte zur Umwandlung von Sonnenenergie in Strom und nicht fossile Energieträger ein. Der Bayerische Landtag hat hierfür zunächst sechs Millionen Euro bewilligt. Geplant ist in einem Zeitraum von fünf Jahren ein umfangreiches Verbundforschungsvorhaben mit einem Gesamtvolumen von rd. 50 Millionen Euro. Die zusätzlichen Fördermittel werden in ein Gemeinschaftsprojekt der Universitäten Bayreuth, Erlangen-Nürnberg und Würzburg sowie der Technischen Universität und der Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (LMU) München als grundlegender Beitrag zur Energiewende in Bayern investiert.

Presseinformation der LMU (deutsch)

Wie DNA und Gold die Nanoforschung revolutionieren

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 10:56:00 +0100

Forschern ist es gelungen, aus DNA und Gold maßgeschneiderte Partikel herzustellen

NanoTemper wins German Innovation Award!

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:39:00 +0100

CeNS spin-off NanoTemper was awarded a price for being Germanys most innovative Start-Up company. The "Deutscher Innovationspreis" was awarded for the MST technology that NanoTemper introduced in 2010. NanoTemper's Monolith instruments rapidly convinced users around the world in basic research as well as pharma and biotech companies. To date hundreds of scientist use the technology which allows them to carry out experiments that have not been possible before. "We are very happy that NanoTemper's new approaches to bio-analytics have been recognized by the jury and we will further extent our range of innovative instruments in the future" says Dr. Stefan Duhr, CEO of NanoTemper.

The German Innovation Award is an annual initiative of accenture, EnBW, Evonik and WirtschaftsWoche. The award honors innovative ideas and business models. The prize was awarded to Dr. Stefan Duhr and Dr. Philipp Baaske (both CEOs of NanoTemper and CeNS members) within a festive event with 400 guests at the Bayerischer Hof in Munich on March 16, 2012.

Deutscher Innovationspreis (in German)
Short portrait of NanoTemper (in German)
Pressemitteilung LMU (in German)

NanoTemper's website