The University of Bonn has appointed yet another outstanding Schlegel Professor financed from Excellence funding. Professor Maja Köhn is set to inject fresh momentum into the Institute for Cell Biology as its Managing Director. Her main area of work is studying phosphatases.

Some time ago, archaeological excavations in the Praunheim district of Frankfurt am Main uncovered a burial ground from the 3rd century. Inside one of its graves, the archaeologists came upon a complete skeleton accompanied by grave goods, in this case an earthenware jug and an incense burner in the shape of a chalice. However, it was not until they were cleaning the bones that they discovered something else—an amulet capsule, which has now turned out to be a truly sensational find. Professor Markus Scholz, an archaeologist and expert in Latin inscriptions based at Goethe University Frankfurt, has managed to decipher the inscription on the capsule with the help of church historian Professor Wolfram Kinzig from the University of Bonn and a number of other researchers. 

A deficiency in blood plasma coagulation factor XIII leads to a disruption in the cross-linking of fibrin, the "glue" in blood coagulation. The enzyme therefore plays an essential role in blood clotting. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn, together with Thermo Fisher Scientific in the Netherlands, deciphered the previously unknown structure of the Factor XIII complex using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), even at the atomic level. This enabled them to visualize the effects of disease-causing, clinically relevant factor XIII mutations in the structure of the coagulation complex. Their results have now been published in the print edition of the journal “Blood”.

In recognition of her excellent research work, Prof. Dr. Angkana Rüland receives the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, which is endowed with 2.5 million euros. The German Research Foundation (DFG) announced this today. The researcher from the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (HCM) at the University of Bonn is honored with the award for her outstanding work. The mathematician at the Cluster of Excellence HCM is being recognized for her outstanding work in mathematical analysis, particularly on models for microstructures in phase transitions in solids and inverse problems with non-local operators. The highly endowed prize permits a large degree of freedom in research. 

In the new Sustainability Rankings of ranking provider Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the University of Bonn has emerged as one of the world’s top 100 universities. Climbing 43 slots, the institution now ranks 95th worldwide, showing very good results in many of the ranking categories.

How were anti-Semitism, fear and children's scare stories connected in late 19th and early 20th-century Europe? This is the question being investigated by Professor Robert Braun of the University of California Berkeley. An Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellow, Braun spent nearly a year at the University of Bonn working under Professor Ove Sutter of the Department of Empirical Cultural Studies and Cultural Anthropology to explore archived material from the Atlas of German Folklore. 

Not one but two researchers at the University of Bonn and the University Hospital Bonn are to receive much-sought-after Consolidator Grants. Awarded by the European Research Council (ERC), they provide millions of euros in funding for outstanding research projects. Professor Philipp Vollmuth is developing an AI foundation model that is expected to set new benchmarks for the use of AI in radiology, while Privatdozent Dr. med. Michael Sommerauer—who recently swapped the University of Cologne for Bonn—is researching the early detection of Parkinson’s disease.

The consumption of milk products, eggs and fish has a positive effect on childhood development in Africa. This has been demonstrated in a recent study by the CABI's regional centre for Africa in Nairobi, Kenya and the University of Bonn. The researchers used representative data from five African countries with over 32,000 child observations. If the children had a diet containing animal products, they suffered less from malnutrition and related developmental deficiencies. The study has now been published in the journal PNAS.