Research

A new collaborative research project involving FAU is working to cultivate communities of microorganisms in the laboratory. The aim is to develop a bioreactor which can simulate the natural living conditions for microbes. The BMBF has provided the project 2.5 million euros in funding.

The potassium channel KCNQ3 is required for our brain to generate accurate spatial maps. In mice, defects in KCNQ3 function have measurable effects on the internal navigation system. The findings of a research team including researchers from FAU recently published in Nature Communications are also relevant for Alzheimer's-type dementia research.

A FAU research team led by Prof. Dr. Christoph Becker has discovered that a messenger substance called prostaglandin E2 can protect epithelial cells from a special form of cell death, necroptosis. These findings offer a possible new treatment approach for ulcerative colitis and other chronic inflammatory bowel diseases.

In the life-threatening autoimmune disease, which mainly affects young women, the immune system attacks its own cells in different organ systems. A young woman has now been successfully treated with a new therapeutic approach at Universitätsklinkum Erlangen and she is now free of symptoms.

Geologists at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg joined forces with researchers from France, Berlin, and Portugal to investigate the extent to which the growth of belemnites and changes to their appearance depend on ecological reactions and whether these changes are evidence of environmental crises that could have a serious impact on the climate in future.

A team of researchers from FAU has created a web portal which determines the movement of ice in all glaciers outside the major ice sheets, and has provided it free of charge for use by the entire academic community and anyone else who is interested.

Immune response stronger than after two doses of AstraZeneca vaccine.

Around the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, rhodoliths made up of coralline red algae provide ecological niches for a wide variety of organisms. A team of researchers from FAU, the University of Bayreuth and Senckenberg Research Institute in Wilhelmshaven has recently discovered a large quantity of microplastics in this ecosystem.

The amygdala plays a central role in the brain. It influences emotions such as anger and joy as well as sexual drive and reproduction. Researchers at FAU have now investigated the influence of certain neurons in the amygdala on the representation of pain in other regions of the brain.

When the immune system attacks a person’s own intestines, this leads to chronic inflammation and considerable pain and discomfort for patients suffering from the disease. A team of researchers at FAU have discovered a new treatment option.