Press Releases

Algae could soon be a widely used sustainable resource. At Fraunhofer IZI-BB, we are focusing on snow algae, that show some unique features. We are also investigating the input of microplastics into the environment and plants and helping to develop environmentally compatible alternative mulch films.

About 1.5 million people die of tuberculosis every year, making it the second deadliest infectious disease worldwide after COVID-19. Increasing antibiotic resistance makes it difficult to combat the disease, especially in developing countries. Therefore, eight companies and research institutions joined forces to create a point-of-care detection system, which can be used cost-effectively on-site and does not require complex laboratory steps.

Algae could soon be a widely used sustainable resource. At Fraunhofer IZI-BB, we are focusing on snow algae, that show some unique features. We are also investigating the input of microplastics into the environment and plants and helping to develop environmentally compatible alternative mulch films.

Corona Drugs, Antiviral Respiratory Masks, and Novel Testing Methods — At the Potsdam Science Park, institutes and companies are working on therapeutic options and solutions to further curb the spread of the corona virus or to accelerate the healing of patients. In the next few years, the research findings could already bring the first corona drugs, antiviral respiratory masks, improved corona tests, or masks with integrated corona tests to the market. The approaches and application scenarios are extremely promising.

Under the umbrella of a funding project, Molzym, in collaboration with Fraunhofer IZI-BB, develops a new analytical platform, called AutoSepT, for fast pathogen identification, directly from specimens, in less than 5 hours.

As a pioneer in applied research, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft brings together the expertise of 23 separate Fraunhofer facilities to develop new development and production technologies for innovative cell and gene therapeutics, as well as vaccines, in the »Production for Intelligent Medicine« innovation cluster. As a first step of the project, a concept for a modular pilot plant for the automatic production of these therapeutics is to be developed combining both Industry 4.0 and Health 4.0.