News

Humboldt-Universität calls for donations
Sponsorship programme for students, doctoral candidates and researchers who have fled Ukraine:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) is very concerned to make it easier for the many refugee students, doctoral candidates and researchers from Ukraine to arrive in Germany. For this reason, Humboldt-Universität has…

Bioplastics from slaughterhouse waste and plant remains
In the process developed by ANiMOX GmbH, the bacterium Cupriavidus necator helps to obtain raw materials for fully degradable plastics:
Axel Höhling, managing partner of ANiMOX, remembers exactly when he had the idea to start his company. It was in late November 2000, just before his birthday, when the first cows in Germany were dropping dead due to…

Tropical dry forests are disappearing rapidly around the globe
Researchers from HU and Université Catholique de Louvain publish comprehensive global study on dry forest deforestation process in Nature Sustainability:
Dry tropical forests are important ecosystems, yet these forests are increasingly threatened, a new study discovers. An innovative approach to characterize how deforestation took place since 2000 showed that more than…

Eliminating harmful antibodies
Researchers of the “reCOVer” project, funded by the ministry of education, are testing a substance against Long Covid:
The infection is over – but the symptoms remain. Researchers worldwide are looking at where Long Covid comes from and what can be done against it. One of the triggers is an immune response gone off the rails. All…

Founder, not professor
Ingenious synthesis by GenoSynth:
When things get really complicated and customer from the chemical and pharmaceutical industry need synthesis of highly complex molecules or optimisation of elaborate processes, GenoSynth offers tailored solutions.…

Adlershof Journal May/June 2022
It’s magic! Fascinating biotechnology:
The healing effect: What biotechnology can achieve // reCOVer: BMBF project tests a substance against Long Covid // Sensitive work: Healthcare marketing by PEIX

Highly sensitive measurements for the smallest particles
An innovative single particle counter is contributing to improve quality of medicines and vaccines:
Reliably identifying solid particles in liquids is complicated when the smallest particles are on the nanometre scale (billionth of a metre) and the largest particles are on the micrometre scale, which is about a…

How plants repair themselves
A research group at the Helmholtz Centre Berlin has found the crucial genetic switch:
Plants are living things. They grow, breathe, and turn carbon dioxide into oxygen using photosynthesis. How this happens exactly hasn’t yet been researched down to the last detail. However, Gert Weber, biochemist and…

Sensitive work
The healthcare marketing experts of PEIX:
It is only since 2012 that it is legal to show medical work wear like scrubs in advertising and it is illegal to advertise prescription drugs and their “promise of efficacy”. “Marketing in every sector has its…

“We are experiencing a change in mentality”
FORLIFE makes products for ostomy, tracheostomy, wound care, and incontinence:
At its location in Adlershof, the company FORLIFE makes products for ostomies. Although these are something very common all over the world, the company is one of its kind in Germany. “We use high-tech and handcraft…

Team at BESSY II disproves hypotheses about perovskite solar cells
The findings enable better approaches for the targeted optimisation of this class of materials:
In order to explain the particularly favourable properties of perovskite semiconductors for solar cells, various hypotheses are circulating. Polarons or a giant Rashba effect, for example, are thought to play a major…

The healing effect
Adlershof-based companies are showing the world what (green) biotechnology can achieve. We will introduce you to two of them that could change the rules of the game through their innovation:
Many suspect them to be cancerous even in the smallest amounts and to damage the liver, kidneys, and DNA: nitrosamines. A substance like that should be kept far away from medicines. However, that’s exactly where the…

Ultrafast molecular chirality: twisting light to twist Electrons
Olga Smirnova receives an ERC Advanced Grant:
Olga Smirnova receives a prestigious Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) which supports, for a period of 5 years, basic research on developing new methods for controlling and imaging ultrafast…

One of the most sensitive methods for chlorine determination
BAM researchers develop method for determining chlorinated contaminants in water by molecular absorption spectrometry:
Chlorinated chemicals are well-known as long-lasting water contaminants. Many of them are formally recognized by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). Although their toxicity and…

HU researchers develop a light amplifier for efficient fiber optic networks
The nano-repeater has succeeded in amplifying light in a glass fiber in just one direction:
Today, optical fibers are the backbone of our information society. However, in order to transmit data over long distances using light in fiber optic networks, the light must be amplified regularly to compensate for…

SCIENION celebrates the laying of the foundation stone for new headquarters in Berlin Adlershof
The biotechnology company, founded in 2001 in the Technology Park, plans to move into its new building in mid-2023:
Together with numerous guests from politics, economics and science, SCIENION GmbH celebrated the laying of the foundation stone of its new headquarters in Berlin Adlershof. The building complex will be constructed on…

Siemens Mobility to relocate its Berlin Treptow branch to the Adlershof science and technology park
Siemens Mobility is moving its development and production site from Treptow to Berlin Adlershof. A modern, new building is being constructed at Germany’s biggest science and technology park on Wagner-Régeny-Strasse in…

BAM uses face recognition algorithms to improve environmental balance of electric batteries
Based on the distribution of lithium isotopes, the ageing of lithium-ion batteries can be determined and evaluated:
The Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) has developed an innovative method that uses algorithms from face recognition to determine the ageing of lithium-ion batteries. The method is intended to help…

Berlin Adlershof: Facts and Figures
The Berlin Adlershof Science City is one of the most successful high-technology sites in Germany and Berlin’s largest media location – embedded in an integrated urban planning concept. It is home to 1,187 companies…

Accelerating write/erase cycles in all-optical magnetization switching
Scientists from MBI and FU Berlin successfully reduced the required time between switching events of magnetic bits to a record value of seven picoseconds:
Magnetic bits for data storage can be written with ultrafast laser pulses, in contrast to the well-established path of using magnetic fields administered via a write head. Researchers at Max Born Institute and Freie…