Through their basic research, physicians at the Heart Center of the University Hospital Bonn have discovered how the communication between individual cells can be influenced with the help of a specific protein. These findings are an important approach to improving the treatment of diseases such as arteriosclerosis (calcified blood vessels), which causes heart attacks. The study was published online in advance in the "Journal of Extracellular Vesicles", the printed version will be published shortly.

According to the recently published Academic Ranking of World Universities by the Chinese Jiaotong University in Shanghai, the University of Bonn is one of the four best universities in Germany, one of the best 20 universities in the European Union and one of the top 100 universities in the world.

For her important research contributions, Dr. Kerstin Ludwig of the Institute of Human Genetics receives the Marylou Buyse Excellence in Craniofacial Research Award of the international Society of Craniofacial Genetics and Developmental Biology.

The Magna Charta Observatory in Bologna has accepted the University of Bonn as a new signatory of the Magna Charta Universitatum.

Researchers at Münster University with the participation of the University of Bonn are studying key mechanisms in the regulation of energy metabolism in plants and, using a new method of in vivo biosensor technology, they have opened the door to monitoring, in real time, what effects environmental changes have on the central redox metabolism. The study has been published in the journal "The Plant Cell".

A software based on artificial intelligence (AI), which was developed by researchers at the Eye Clinic of the University Hospital Bonn, Stanford University and University of Utah, enables the precise assessment of the progression of geographic atrophy (GA), a disease of the light sensitive retina caused by age-related macular degeneration (AMD). This innovative approach permits the fully automated measurement of the main atrophic lesions using data from optical coherence tomography, which provides three-dimensional visualization of the structure of the retina. In addition, the research team can precisely determine the integrity of light sensitive cells of the entire central retina and also detect progressive degenerative changes of the so-called photoreceptors beyond the main lesions. The findings will be used to assess the effectiveness of new innovative therapeutic approaches. The study has now been published in the journal "JAMA Ophthalmology".

Spontaneous mutations of a single gene are likely to cause serious developmental disorders of the excretory organs and genitalia. This is shown in an international study led by the University of Bonn and published in the journal "Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology". The researchers also owe their findings to an unusual model organism: the zebrafish.

Contrary to what has been generally assumed so far, a severe course of COVID-19 does not solely result in a strong immune reaction – rather, the immune response is caught in a continuous loop of activation and inhibition. Experts from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, the University of Bonn, the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), along with colleagues from a nationwide research network, present these findings in the scientific journal "Cell".