The new innovative research projects will receive their funding of several millions of euros each from January 1, 2022 for an initial period of four years. "It is great news that scientists at our University of Excellence have been able to acquire two new Collaborative Research Centres and that two successful CRCs have been extended. My heartfelt congratulations to the speakers and all participating researchers in Bonn and the other locations!" says Rector Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Michael Hoch. “Both new CRCs address central societal challenges facing worldwide in the areas of health and climate change and are anchored not least for this reason in our Transdisciplinary Research Areas, which form a core element of our Excellence Strategy."
Regional climate change: the role of land use and water management
Man-made climate change has already increased the frequency of extreme events such as heat waves, droughts and heavy precipitation - experts predict a continuation of this trend for the rest of the 21st century. "The consequences of this, for example drying out soils in some regions and increasing flooding in others, threaten the coexistence and existence of future generations," says Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kusche from the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation at the University of Bonn, speaker of the new Collaborative Research Centre. "They pose significant risks, including to sustainable agricultural production and thus to food supplies."
The far-reaching influence of climate gases, especially CO2 and methane, on the global climate is undisputed. In the Collaborative Research Centre 1502 "Regional Climate Change: The Role of Land Use and Water Management," the researchers investigate the hypothesis that human-induced land use change and intensified water management also influence regional climate - leading to unintended changes in the natural regional water and energy cycle. The hypothesis to be investigated in the CRC even goes so far as to suggest that such changes have already contributed significantly to the observed trends in the regional water cycle.
To investigate this hypothesis further, researchers from a wide range of disciplines come together - including hydrology, meteorology, geodesy, earth system modeling, remote sensing, agricultural economics and social sciences. Together, they aim to develop a model system that will be able to map, in particular, those human-climate interactions associated with changes in the continental hydrological cycle.
The project groups of the CRC will initially focus on Europe in the first, four-year funding phase. The goal is to develop a coupled model system that will map not only the dynamics of the individual components of the Earth system, but also their interactions with each other, and will serve in particular to quantify human-induced influences on the natural regional water cycle. "Our research results achieved in the CRC will serve as a basis for the development of criteria for sustainable land and water use, in terms of the regional climate," Jürgen Kusche emphasizes.
Other partners include Forschungszentrum Jülich, Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) and the Universities of Cologne and Göttingen.
The Collaborative Research Centre is thematically embedded in the Transdisciplinary Research Areas "Modeling" and "Sustainable Futures" of the University of Bonn.
Funding amount: almost 10 million euros
Speaker:
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kusche, Chair of Astronomical, Physical and Mathematical Geodesy; Institute for Geodesy and Geoinformation (IGG), University of Bonn
Co-speakers:
Prof. Dr. Silke Hüttel, Chair of Production Economics, Institute of Food and Resource Economics (ILR), University of Bonn
Prof. Dr. Harry Vereecken, Institute for Bio- and Geosciences, Forschungszentrum Jülich
Brown fat to combat obesity
In the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre 333 "Brown and Beige Fat Organ Crosstalk, Signaling and Energetics ( BATenergy)", researchers from the University of Bonn and the University Hospital Bonn, the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Helmholtz Zentrum München are working closely together. They are investigating different types of adipose tissue and their role in metabolic diseases. The focus is on brown fat cells, which are specialized in converting energy into heat. This makes them fundamentally different from white fat cells, which store energy in the form of fat. But even in white adipose tissue there are isolated brown fat cells, called "beige" cells.
Worldwide, the number of overweight and obese patients is increasing, and with it diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Obesity is also a risk factor for developing severe Covid19. The goal of the CRC is to characterize the function of brown adipose cells at all levels, to uncover new communication pathways within our body, and thus to develop new therapeutic approaches for metabolic diseases in the future.
Brown adipose tissue is activated by cold. The researchers want to identify the body's own messenger substances and find out how different organs regulate brown fat. "This will provide a new picture of mutual communication of adipose tissue with other metabolic organs," says Prof. Dr. Alexander Pfeifer from the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Bonn, speaker of the Collaborative Research CRC.
In their projects, the teams use state-of-the-art molecular biology methods as well as cell culture systems of fat cells and investigate metabolism from mice to humans. In this way, they hope to uncover new molecular mechanisms and target structures for drugs. In the long term, this should lead to new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of metabolic disease.
The vice speakers Prof. Dr. Jörg Heeren from the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology of the UKE and Prof. Dr. Henriette Uhlenhaut from the TUM School of Life Sciences emphasize that the Collaborative Research Centre uniquely brings together expert teams from metabolism research at three German Universities of Excellence and the Helmholtz Zentrum in Munich.
The Collaborative Research Centre is thematically embedded in the Transdisciplinary Research Areas "Life and Health" and "Sustainable Futures" of the University of Bonn. At the UKE, the CRC is thematically assigned to the interdisciplinary research area C3I (Center for Inflammation, Infection and Immunity).
Speaker:
Prof. Dr. Alexander Pfeifer, Director of the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Bonn
Co-Speakers:
Prof. Dr. Jörg Heeren, holder of a Heisenberg Professorship for Immuno-Metabolism and Deputy Director of the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology of the UKE
Prof. Dr. Henriette Uhlenhaut, Chair for Metabolic Programming, TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan & ZIEL-Institute for Food & Health at TUM
Innovative and long-term research projects
Collaborative Research Centres established by the DFG enable innovative, ambitious and long-term research projects to be carried out in a network and are thus intended to serve the development of priorities and structures at the applicant universities. They consist of a large number of sub-projects which are jointly managed by individual or several researchers. Transregional CRCs are distributed among several applicant universities. The CRCs are initially funded for four years. An extension to a maximum of twelve years is possible.
