Research

On Thursday May 12, 2022, the physicist Prof. Dr. Peter Hommelhoff from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) is to receive the most prestigious research prize in Germany, also known as the German Nobel Prize: the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. The prize is worth 2.5 million euros, significantly more than the Nobel Prize.

When stars like our Sun use up all their fuel, they shrink to form white dwarfs. Sometimes such dead stars flare back to life in a super hot explosion and produce a fireball of X-ray radiation. A research team led by FAU has now been able to observe such an explosion of X-ray light for the very first time.

Major success for FAU researchers: The DFG has approved funding for two new research training groups (RTG) and has extended funding for an existing RTG. This means that the DFG is providing around 15.3 million euros of funding for young researchers at FAU who are completing doctoral degrees in the fields of linguistics, literature studies, and applied mathematics.

There are many different types of arthritis, and diagnosing the exact type of inflammatory disease that is affecting a patient’s joints is not always easy. In an interdisciplinary research project conducted at FAU and Universitätsklinikum Erlangen, computer scientists and physicians have now succeeded in teaching an artificial neural network to differentiate between rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and healthy joints.

Restoring and preventing further loss of native forests is therefore essential for combating climate change. It reduces human vulnerability to climate change by providing shade and cooling, reduces air pollution, stores carbon, builds natural systems resilience, prevents erosion and reduces flood risk by slowing water flow and supports biodiversity.

A research team at FAU has successfully built the world’s smallest energy powered gear wheel with corresponding counterpart. The nano gear unit is the first that can also be actively controlled and driven.

Prof. Dr. Paul Steinmann, Chair of Applied Mechanics, has been awarded an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Professor Steinmann intends to use the funding worth 2.5 million euros to investigate the fracture mechanics of soft materials such as rubber or tissue more intensively during the next five years.

Human-caused climate change increases wildfire by intensifying its principal driving factor – heat. The heat of climate change dries out vegetation and accelerates burning. Analyses show that cross the western U.S., higher temperatures caused by human-caused climate change doubled burned area from 1984 to 2015, compared with what would have burned without climate change.

Materials science and engineering at FAU is once more ranked among the top 100 in the world in 2022 according to the latest QS World University Subject Ranking. Overall FAU is rated as one of the top 250 universities worldwide for six subjects.

The messenger substance interleukin 3 produced by the body has been considered up to now as pro-inflammatory in bronchial asthma. A research team from Universitätsklinikum Erlangen has now shown for the first time that the administration of interleukin-3, or IL-3 for short, can have a positive effect on chronic inflammatory respiratory disease.