Science to Listen to!

In imaging, scientists have to deal with complex datasets. But sometimes they lack the software to display such a jumble of data clearly. When this happens, computers scientists are in high demand. In Münster, two computer scientists are developing a program that morphs different datasets into vivid 3D-graphics and impressive internal images of the body.

Natalizumab is a miracle drug. It prevents patients with multiple sclerosis from suffering another MS episode. But in rare cases, side effects can lead to death. So neuroscientists in Münster have been searching for a biomarker that can provide information for physicians about if a patient is able to take the drug without great risk.

… because modern scientists have to be open-minded about other fields to achieve progress in their research. That is why the CiM-IMPRS Graduate School trains junior researchers to work in interdisciplinary and international ways. The programme challenges its graduate students with a task they can only complete by working together.

It can reproduce itself from a piece of its own tail and can even regrow its head – the regenerative capacity of the flatworm has always amazed scientists and journalists. Now, with the help of modern sequencing technologies, Dr. Kerstin Bartscherer and her team are finally able to explore these complex processes in detail.

If you move during an examination with a whole body scanner the resulting images from inside the body will be blurred. A patient’s breathing is already enough to make tomographic images less precise. That is why medical physicist Dr. Florian Büther and nuclear medicine specialist Dr. Thomas Vehren develop new methods which shall improve the quality of medical images.

Scanning before dissection – to look inside the human body physicians nowadays use a set of imaging techniques. Just recently, the University Hospital Münster has installed an innovative hybrid system which combines PET and MRI. The high end scanner generates both unique images and challenges for the physicians.

What tells a cell how and where it should move? At the end of the day genes are responsible. And which gene functions actually regulate a targeted movement of blood cells in order to close a wound is explored by Dr. Sven Bogdan and Prof. Xiaoyi Jiang with the help of both microscopes and algorithms. The perfect model organism for this issue is the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

The method of tracking allows to follow individual cells in motion over a period of time. With his mathematical models, Dr. Christoph Brune provides great support for Prof. Dietmar Vestweber who studies the specific pathway immune cells take during migration. A targeted blockage of this pathway may help to regulate chronical inflammations in the future.

When coronary arteries become inflamed, the vessel walls thicken and may rupture – leading to an acute heart attack. Dr. Thomas Vogl, Dr. Andreas Faust und Dr. Sven Hermann develop substances to visualise inflamed vessel walls with molecular imaging and to assess the individual risk.

Cellular structures of different dimensions can be studied specifically by light microscopy – ranging from processes in the whole organism to the smallest components of individual cells. In the last thirty years, microscopes have benefitted from fluorescence and 3D-techniques and are extremely powerful, explain Prof. Jürgen Klingauf and Prof. Friedemann Kiefer.

How do cells move forward? In cell migration, stiffness and elasticity play an important role. In a new project, Prof. Cornelia Denz and Prof. Erez Raz will measure these biophysical properties for the first time. The embryo of a zebrafish is a very appropriate animal model for that.

The cellular membrane is an envelope surrounding a cell. It takes over many communicative and controlling functions in central processes of the cell. With novel laser-techniques, Prof. Carsten Fallnich and Prof. Volker Gerke want to decode specific mosaic structures of the membrane that are central to the understanding of cells in motion.

As the reasons for multiple sclerosis (MS) are yet not known, Prof. Lydia Sorokin and Prof. Günter Haufe cooperate in a project where they want to bring the progress of MS in sudden inflammatory attacks on pictures. Therefore, they improve and specifiy the method of molecular imaging - this research promises new understanding of the nervous disease MS.