Research

A robot performing surgery on humans. What sounds like science fiction could provide support to physicians in the operating room in future. The project is set to receive around 2 million euros of funding from the Bavarian Research Foundation because of its innovative approach. 

Volunteering in your free time is a good thing: It can strengthen the team spirit in a club, is beneficial to the environment and provides support to older people. A team of researchers at FAU and the digiDEM Bayern Digital Dementia Register has now discovered that voluntary work can have a positive effect on the cognitive abilities of the volunteers themselves.

Headaches, high blood pressure or digestive problems can be signs of many different medical conditions. Treatment is often aimed at alleviating symptoms. This is something experts at FAU hope to change.

Antibodies are crucial, not only for treating tumors and infections. Sometimes, however, the immune reaction they trigger can be too strong and end up causing more damage, for example in the case of people infected with Covid-19. Problems such as these can often be avoided by finetuning antibodies, as Prof. Dr. Falk Nimmerjahn from FAU and two of his colleagues in the Netherlands and in the UK have now reported in the journal Nature Immunology.

Organic electronics can make a decisive contribution to decarbonization and, at the same time, help to cut the consumption of rare and valuable raw materials. To do so, it is not only necessary to further develop manufacturing processes, but also to devise technical solutions for recycling as early on as the laboratory phase. Materials scientists from FAU are now promoting this circular strategy in conjunction with researchers from the UK and USA in the renowned journal “Nature Materials”.

The origins of a high-energy shower of relativistic particles that is constantly impacting the Earth’s atmosphere is one of the greatest mysteries of modern astroparticle physics. A team of researchers is now unlocking this mystery. With the IceCube detector at the Earth’s South Pole, they have been able to detect neutrinos from our Milky Way.

An intelligent suit is hoped to significantly improve rehabilitation after a serious spinal cord injury. The AI-supported solution will be developed over the next three years by researchers from FAU working in collaboration with Heidelberg University and Heidelberg University Hospital. It combines electrical simulation of muscles with support for movement using artificial tendons, and reacts to patients’ intended movements.

We spoke with ZIWIS Director Michael Jungert about the significance and relevance of the applied philosophy of science and about what is known as the Erlangen model.   

Patients with limited hand function are soon set to benefit from an intelligent neuro-orthosis that will enable them to lead independent lives again. Prof. Dr. Alessandro Del Vecchio, a neuroscientist at FAU, is working on this aim in two new projects and has received over 1.3 million euros of funding from the Free State of Bavaria.

Teachers must be able to include digital teaching and learning activities during their lessons to be able to teach digital skills. This is being addressed in a collaborative project involving FAU, which is being funded from June 2023 to December 2025 with around 6.3 million euros from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.