Research

Can the rhythm and music therapy TaKeTiNa alleviate the symptoms of depressed patients and possibly even strengthen the immune system? A new study to investigate this will start in October 2020. The first information events for interested parties will take place in September 2020.

Seven years ago, the Green Factory Bavaria project was launched with the aim of minimising resource consumption in production. Project coordinator Prof. Dr. Jörg Franke of the Institute for Factory Automation and Production Systems explains the most important results of the Green Factory Bavaria.

Is it possible to influence the progression of an aggressive form of leukaemia and improve chances of recovery by adopting a special diet? Research conducted by the team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Robert Slany at the Chair of Genetics at FAU and published in the journal ‘BloodAdvances’ suggest that this may be the case.

Human geneticists at FAU have identified an enzyme deficiency as the trigger for generalised pustular psoriasis, a particularly severe form of psoriasis. The results of the study, which have been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, could lead to new possibilities for treatment.

Researchers at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Universitätsklinikum Erlangen have developed a new bouldering psychotherapy approach. Following on from the pilot study, the follow-up study has also shown that bouldering psychotherapy is considerably more effective than physical exercise alone and at least as effective as behavioural therapy.

FAU is a partner of the ‘Global Market Leaders Innovation Day’ initiative run by the German financial magazine WirtschaftsWoche, which is to be held in Erlangen on 8 September 2020. Renowned researchers and young talents from FAU will present their research and ideas on the main focal topic ‘energy and climate’.

The international project ‘Age(ing) as future’ at the Institute of Psychogerontology at FAU initiated a study within the context of the coronavirus pandemic in April. It investigates personal experiences, attitudes, worries and behaviour with respect to Covid-19 in Germany and Hong Kong.

Researchers from the German Centre for Immunotherapy (DZI) at Universitätsklinikum Erlangen have conducted tests to detect antibodies against the coronavirus, as diseases such as arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease or psoriasis are treated with medication that inhibits inflammation and modulates the immune response. A detailed corona antibody study has now been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

In conjunction with the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) (Federal Criminal Police Office) and IT company Secunet, FAU will be working on a technological solution during the next two years that will allow car number plates to be read even on blurred images.

A research team led by Dr. med. Moritz Leppkes of FAU has discovered that in Covid-19 infections certain white blood cells, the neutrophilic granulocytes, are activated particularly aggressively, and then agglomerate and form nets known as neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in the blood vessels of the lungs.