Our Year by Topics

Dr. Maria Bartosova, a biotechnician at the Center for Child and Juvenile Medicine at Heidelberg, was awarded the young talents prize of MFHD for her research on vascular damage in children requiring dialysis. The prize is endowed with 10,000 euros. The founders, Dr. Friedrich Reutner and his wife Anita Reutner support young and talented scientists at the MFHD in their research projects.

The physician and university lecturer Dr. Jobst-Hendrik Schultz was awarded the Ars legendi Faculty Prize in Medicine in 2021 of the Donor Association and the German Association of Medical Faculties. He is committed to interprofessional teaching, the further development of the Heidelberg Medical Curriculum (HeiCuMed) and the subjects of digital health and e-Health in teaching. Dr. Jobst-Hendrik Schultz shares this prize and the prize money of 30,000 euros with Dr. Caroline Klingner, a neurologist from Jena.

So that medications can develop their maximum effect with as few side effects as possible, the dosage must be adjusted for every patient. As an innovative solution clinical pharmacologists and pharmacists, together with their industrial partners, are testing the digital printing of pharmaceuticals onto gel platelets that dissolve in the mouth. The Dietmar Hopp Stiftung is sponsoring this research project with approximately 1.4 million euros in funding.

UKHD received two re-certifications in 2021: The German Society for General and Visceral Surgery (DGAV) has honored the Department for General, Visceral and Transplantation Surgery, together with its cooperation partners Salem Hospital and the GRN Clinic in Sinsheim, as the “Center of Excellence for Minimally Invasive Surgery”. Hence the Department for at Heidelberg belongs one of five centers of excellence throughout Germany. The Lung Clinic at UKHD and NCT Heidelberg received a certificate as a “Lung Cancer Center” from the German Cancer Society (DKG). Newly added is the seal of quality as a certified “Mesothelioma Unit”. This is an award for expertise in the treatment of tumors of the costal pleura.

The Royal Netherlands Academy of the Arts and Sciences awarded the Heidelberg virologist Prof. Dr. Ralf Bartenschlager the “M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize” and 35,000 euros in prize money for his contribution in the battle against the global infectious disease of Hepatitis C.

In the presence of Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, representatives of the Prinses Máxima Centrums, the Hopp Children’s Tumor Center in Heidelberg (KiTZ), the UHKD and the DKFZ signed a memorandum on strategic cooperation in European child oncology at the Dutch embassy in Berlin. A research fund established by KiTZ and the Prinses Máxima Centrum is now going to create better conditions for European child oncology as quickly as possible.

A study conducted under the leadership of the Radiology Department of the Heidelberg University Hospital has shown that a more intensive and thus shorter period of radiation after breast-cancer surgery is just as effective as a standard therapy. During the follow-up observation period of five years, the new radiation concept has produced a treatment outcome and cosmetic result that are equivalent to conventional treatments.

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wick, Medical Director of the Neurology Department, is a member of the German Council of Science and Humanities. He was appointed for three years to the most important scientific policy advisory board for the Federal Parliament and the state governments in Germany.

A particularly suitable process for cell imaging with a broad application for medical research is going to be developed for research on viral illnesses. For this purpose, the European Union is providing an international consortium of virologists and imaging experts with funding in the amount of 5.7 million euros until the end of 2024. A total of about 1.6 million euros went to the Heidelberg University and the UKHD.

Prof. Dr. Markus W. Büchler, Medical Director of the Surgical Department at Heidelberg University Hospital, was awarded the 2021 German Cancer Prize for his achievements to improve the treatment of pancreas cancer in the area of “clinical research”. Prof. Büchler refined surgical techniques to optimize surgical interventions regarding carcinomas of the pancreas and implemented a global standard for treatment.

For more than 20 years the team of the Department for Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacoepidemiology has developed digital support systems. The objective is to prevent dosing errors and interactions in in drug treatments. Together with partners from the industry a new web-based app has been developed. It supports physicians and pharmacists in choosing and dosing certain anticoagulants when treating atrial fibrillation, among other things.

How does the coronavirus change cells infected with SARS-CoV-2 to multiply effectively? To find an answer, researchers at the Center for Infectiology chemically inactivated infected cell lines and shock-froze them. Thus, they were able to describe the changes to cellular membranes and organelles, that are crucial for effective reproduction.

For her many years of volunteer work for patients with lung cancer, Annette Hans, a former patient at the Lung Clinic, was honored with the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. She is co-founder of the “support group for lung cancer patients in the metropolitan Rhine-Neckar region” as well as chairperson of the State Association of Baden-Wuerttemberg and in addition, she also regularly participated in the tobacco prevention program called “ohnekippe” (no cigarette butts) of the Lung Clinic.

As part of a sophisticated international evaluation process, the ZIHub research alliance has qualified to design the new German Center for Mental Health together with other selected research sites. In this way, the alliance promotes the long-term networking of excellent facilities with the goal of more quickly transferring new medical research results into applications.

Prof. Dr. Andreas von Deimling, Medical Director of the Department for Neuropathology was honored with the International Prize for Translational Neuroscience of the Gertrud-Reetsma Foundation for his work on new methods for the precise diagnosis of brain tumors. He shares this prize endowed with 60,000 euros with the neurooncologist Dr. Hai Yan from the Duke University School of Medicine, USA. Prof. von Deimling is conducting research on new methods for the precise diagnosis of brain tumors.

Originally on loan, the OP robot called “Da Vinci Xi” is part of the permanent high-tech equipment of the Department of Surgery at Heidelberg University Hospital. This purchase was made possible with the financial support of three million euros provided by the Dietmar Hopp Stiftung. With this robot, minimally invasive surgery can be performed with the highest possible precision on all organs of the abdomen.

For the first time, physicians and cancer researchers from Heidelberg and Mannheim have tested a mutation-specific vaccine against malignant brain tumors in a clinical trial. The vaccine proved to be safe and triggered the desired immune responses in the tumor tissue.

The development of a drug against heart failure is the objective of a collaboration on the part of UKHD with partners from the industry. Researchers at the Institute for Experimental Cardiology discovered this new therapeutic approach. The scientists found out that a certain enzyme in the heart muscle plays a central role in the onset and progression of cardiac insufficiency. This therapeutic approach is now going to be applied clinically.

After a construction period of 18 months the modernized outpatient department of the Lung Clinic was inaugurated. After this conversion work, all outpatient areas are closer together spatially and the various special outpatient departments for patients with complex lung diseases are organizationally closely coordinated.

A new CT scanner will make even more precise and faster diagnosis possible, especially for heart, vascular and cancer diseases. The CT scanner combines two measurements in one single scan. Thus, the time needed for the scan is reduced and patients are spared an additional examination in many cases.

Human geneticists in Heidelberg have described a previously unknown genetic alteration that coincides with autism, movement disorders and partly impaired pain perception in children. This newly discovered gene mutation is another piece of the puzzle in explaining childhood development disorders. In addition, the diagnosis helps parents of an afflicted child to better cope with the situation.

Employees at the Center for Infectiology at UKHD and EMBL have succeeded for the first time in depicting the HI virus during transport into the nucleus of the infected cell. It was unclear to date how the viral genetic material moved from the capsid into the cell nucleus, where it triggers the formation of new viruses. Electron tomography images show: the protein envelope of the virus passes through the nucleus pores as a whole and only breaks apart inside the nucleus of the cell, where it releases the genetic information of the virus.

The Manfred Lautenschläger Stiftung is funding two research projects at the UKHD on Alzheimer’s dementia and pancreas cancer with one million euros each. In the work being funded the experts are linking basic research with potential approaches for early detection, prevention, and personalized medicine.