Research

Women are under-represented in many STEM areas, even more so in Germany than in other countries throughout the world. This is a common claim here in Germany, and has been scientifically proven to be true with respect to the proportion of female students and professors. A study led by FAU has now shown that the proportion on active female scientists in computer science, regardless of academic level, is less than ten percent. Not only in Germany, but also internationally.

Covid-19 leads to a similar excessive immune reaction in the lungs as in organs affected by rheumatism, psoriasis or intestinal inflammation. A research team at FAU has now shown in a study that drugs used to treat autoimmune diseases inhibit Covid-19 infections before the coronavirus can spread in the body.

The aim of the ambitious project is to develop monoclonal antibodies that can be used, for example, to protect medical personnel, staff in care homes and high-risk patients.

A team of researchers at FAU has now completed detailed modelling of the Covid-19 pandemic and has derived potential strategies for a controlled easing of restrictions.

The Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research has launched a study aimed at recording whether Covid-19 patients experience a loss of taste and smell, as well as any changes to sensory perception within the mouth.

Prof. Dr. Holger Hackstein talks about how his work as a transfusion physician has changed since the coronavirus pandemic, how special regulations of pharmaceutical law facilitate current work and how he assesses the preparations of Universitätsklinikum Erlangen, in a YouTube talk with host Prof. Dr. Joachim Hornegger, President of FAU.

Ein Forschungsteam der FAU hat eine neuartige Methode entwickelt, mit der Oberflächen auf der Nanoskala absolut sauber werden. Durch mechanische Kräfte werden dabei auch kleinste Kontaminationen bis zur atomaren Skala entfernt.

A type of video monitoring could help us get the better of coronavirus: Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light and FAU are trying to observe how cells become infected with Sars-CoV-2 in real time. They are hoping to achieve this by installing a particularly powerful microscope in a high-security virology laboratory.

How can rural areas be developed so that they offer a culturally attractive place to live for young people? And how can libraries as a place of culture make a contribution? These are the questions the ‘Libraries, Digitalisation, and Cultural Education in Peripheral Areas’ project hopes to answer.

Universitätsklinikum Erlangen has been granted official permission to produce therapeutic plasma to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients. Current scientific data suggest that COVID-19 immune plasma could significantly mitigate the life-threatening progression of the disease.