Press Releases of the MPI-NAT

A team led by Hauke Hillen has shown how the genetic material of the Nipah virus replicates in infected cells. The virus can cause fatal encephalitis in humans. Using cryo-electron microscopy, the team was able to visualize the three-dimensional structure of the viral “copying machine”.
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A woman's egg cells are already formed in her body before she is born. However, with increasing age, DNA damage accumulates in the cells. Researchers have revealed why the cell’s own repair mechanisms do not fix this damage. more

A Göttingen research team has discovered a molecular “spring” that opens ion channels in the sensory hair cells of the ear. Their findings shed new light on our understanding of the sense of hearing and the function of ion channels. more

A team of researchers led by Stefan Hell has increased the resolution in fluorescence microscopy by a factor of 30 without switching fluorescent molecules sequentially into a fluorescent and a non-fluorescent state. By using an illumination beam with a zero-intensity stripe (node) in the beam they were able to separate constantly emitting molecules down to distances of a few nanometers. more

Stefan Hell receives the highest award from the state of Lower Saxony for his many years of scientific achievements and his outstanding contribution to the research landscape in Lower Saxony. (in German) more

Frauke Alves and her team at NanoDrug Delivery GmbH have won the Lower Saxony Innovation Award in the category “Knowledge and Technology Transfer”. The spin-off from the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, the University Medical Center Göttingen, and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology develops so-called nanoparticles that transport drugs precisely into tumor tissue, for example. (in German) more

Alec Wodtke, Liv Hornekær, Varun Verma, and Peter Saalfrank receive a Synergy Grant from the European Research Council worth 12 million euros over six years for their research project IRASTRO. more