News & Views

A twelve-meter high wall installation was recently assembled in the gradually emerging Multiscale Imaging Centre. The work, by artist Cordula Hesselbarth, is entitled “Auf|Lösung” (Re|Solution) and embodies the research that scientists will be undertaking in the building on Röntgenstraße in Münster. Have a look at our latest photos and info!

A team headed by developmental biologist Prof Dr Stefan Luschnig from the University of Münster has discovered that during egg development in fruit flies, intercellular gaps open between epithelial cells in a controlled way at the points where three cells meet. This process allows yolk proteins to be transported into the egg cell. The study has been published in the journal “Developmental Cell”.

Prof. Dr. Ryan Gilmour from the Institute of Organic Chemistry at Münster University has been elected to the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), Scotland's national academy of science and letters. As one of seven personalities eleceted as corresponding fellows, the chemist joins the ranks of distinguished Fellows resident abroad.

In an interview, mathematician Prof Benedikt Wirth gives insights into mathematical concepts that are fundamental for medical imaging and describes specific research projects in which he works together with colleagues from the fields of biology, medicine, physics and other disciplines. In an online talk on March 24, he will then be presenting (in German) mathematical findings which were necessary for the development of technologies.

At first sight, mathematics and cancer treatment don’t have much to do with each other. However, calculations play an important part in medical imaging. Marco Mauritz from Prof Beneditk Wirth’s research group works at this interface in an interdisciplinary team of researchers.

Researchers around cell biologist Prof Dr Carsten Grashoff from the University of Münster and at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry have developed a method for determining the arrangement and density of individual proteins in cells. In this way, they were able to prove the existence of an adhesion complex consisting of three proteins.

Two initiatives on topics in the research area of the Cells in Motion Interfaculty Centre have received funding from the Rectorate of the University of Münster: Microbiologist Prof Dr Ulrich Dobrindt and cell biologist Prof Dr Ursula Rescher are addressing questions of host-microbe interaction. Mathematician Prof Dr Angela Stevens and cell biologist Prof Dr Erez Raz want to conceptually deepen the interplay between experimental biology and mathematics.

Biologists and mathematicians at the Universities of Münster and Erlangen-Nürnberg investigated how primordial germ cells behave in zebrafish embryos when not influenced by a guidance cue and developed software that merges 3D microscopy images of multiple organisms. This made it possible to recognise patterns in the cell distribution and thus to highlight tissues that influence cell migration. The study was published in “Science Advances”.

Working together with an international team, researchers around nanophysicist Prof Dr Wolfram Pernice at Münster University found that photonic processors, with which data is processed by means of light, can process information very much more rapidly and in parallel than electronic chips. The results published in "Nature" could be applied to support the evaluation of large quantities of data produced in biomedical imaging.