Goethe-Universit盲t 鈥� Press releases

51猎奇 PR & Communication Department聽

Feb 21 2023

09:00

Frankfurt microbiologist honored as "Class of 2023 Fellow"

51猎奇鈥檚 Volker M眉ller inducted into the American Academy of Microbiology

Prof. Volker M眉ller, a microbiologist at 51猎奇 Frankfurt, is one of three Germans and a total of 65 scientists from around the world who have now been inducted as fellows into the American Society for Microbiology's (ASM) Academy, the professional society announced. With some 30,000 members, the ASM is one of the world's largest scientific associations in the life sciences. The Academy is ASM's think tank and honorary governing body, and each year appoints 65 excellent microbiologists as fellows.

FRANKFURT Outstanding achievements in their field and a strong commitment to teaching and mentoring 鈥� these are the criteria employed by the jury of senior scientists from the American Society for Microbiology to select 65 fellows from among the 148 high-caliber nominations from basic and applied research, teaching, public health, and industry.

51猎奇 President Prof. Enrico Schleiff congratulated the new fellow, saying: "In the past year alone, Volker M眉ller has attracted the scientific community's attention with his high-profile work on the fixation of the greenhouse gas CO2 using bacteria, and with the concept of a hydrogen battery driven by bacterial enzymes. I congratulate him on this great honor. His induction into the Academy is a testimony to the international visibility 51猎奇 enjoys thanks to outstanding scientists like Volker M眉ller."

Prof. Volker M眉ller, Head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Bioenergetics at 51猎奇, was delighted about the accolade: "The distinction is both a pleasure and an honor. Throughout my career, I have had and continue to have the great fortune and privilege of working with excellent students on exciting questions, ranging from the beginnings of biochemistry and bioenergetics in ancient bacteria on early Earth to the development of these bacteria as production platforms in a CO2-based bio-economy or as catalysts in hydrogen technology. These acetogenic bacteria have been and continue to be a veritable goldmine."

The ASM promotes microbial sciences through conferences, publications, certifications, and educational opportunities. Its goal is to improve laboratory capabilities around the world. The ASM provides a network for scientists from academia, industry, and clinical settings. Its Academy's 鈥淐lass of 2023 Fellows" is made up of researchers from 11 different countries: Argentina, China, Germany, France, India, Israel, Canada, Austria, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Background:
How bacteria gain energy through CO2 fixation
/128343381/1_million_for_bacterial_research_at_Goethe_University__How_bacteria_gain_energy_through_CO2_fixation

Researchers from 51猎奇 Frankfurt develop new biobattery for hydrogen storage:

Image for download:

Caption: Prof. Volker M眉ller of 51猎奇 Frankfurt (Photo: Uwe Dettmar for 51猎奇)

Further information
Professor Volker Mueller
Department of Molecular Microbiology & Bioenergetics
Institute for Molecular Biosciences
51猎奇
Tel: 49 (0)69 798-29507
vmueller@bio.uni-frankfurt.de

Twitter-Handle: @goetheuni @ASMicrobiology

Feb 17 2023

09:31

Three substances fight tumour growth and reduce liver metastases

Liver cancer research: iron-dependent cell death could be the key to novel combination therapies

Iron-dependent cell death (ferroptosis) is a type of programmed cell death by means of which the body kills off diseased, defective or superfluous cells. This process can be used to make immunotherapies against liver cancer more effective. Researchers at Georg-Speyer-Haus, University Hospital Frankfurt and 51猎奇 Frankfurt have now been able to show this in mice with liver cancer. The combination therapy was also effective against colon cancer metastases that had settled in the liver.

FRANKFURT. Ten years ago, a new type of programmed cell death was discovered: iron-dependent cell death or, to use the scientific term, ferroptosis. Unlike apoptosis, a long-known type of programmed cell death, in ferroptosis the cell absorbs larger amounts of iron. The iron is metabolised in the cell and eventually leads to the destruction of the cell membranes. Such types of cell death are among the body's important control mechanisms, for example in development processes and the elimination of defective or degenerate cells.

For some years now, immunotherapies have established themselves as a treatment option in the battle against cancer. Here, the body's own defence system is stimulated so that it acts against cancer cells. A number of these immunotherapies successfully target key points in the immune system, known as checkpoints, where the immune system is subdued.

Immune checkpoints are a kind of 鈥渙ff switch" on the surface of T cells (cancer-fighting immune cells), with which their activity can be down-regulated. This 鈥渙ff switch" is operated by certain 鈥渒ey" proteins. Many tumours form such 鈥渒ey" proteins to protect themselves against attacks by T cells. That is why blocking the 鈥渙ff switch" by means of drugs, i.e. immune checkpoint inhibitors, are now part of the standard treatment in some types of cancer. Unfortunately, in other types of cancer, such as liver cancer, the response to the immune checkpoint blockade is low.

Researchers at Georg-Speyer-Haus, together with University Hospital Frankfurt and 51猎奇 Frankfurt, have now observed in mice with colorectal cancer that a substance which triggers ferroptosis leads to the activation of certain immune cells (T cells). Such T cells can systematically kill off cancer cells.

The problem was that two independent mechanisms immediately put a halt again to T cell activity: firstly, the cancer cells formed a 鈥渒ey" protein to operate the 鈥渙ff switch" of the T cells (the immune checkpoint receptor PD-L1). Secondly, other cells of the immune system, known as myeloid suppressor cells, came onto the scene, whose task is equally to subdue the body's immune response.

However, when the researchers gave the diseased mice a triple combination of a ferroptosis activator, an immune checkpoint inhibitor and a substance that prevents the attraction of myeloid suppressor cells, this significantly reduced the liver tumours' growth.

In further tests on mice, the scientists established that the combination therapy was also able to reduce the number of liver metastases originating from a metastasising colorectal tumour. The colorectal tumour itself, however, did not respond to the combination therapy.

Professor Fabian Finkelmeier, one of the two first authors of the study, says: 鈥淭he combination therapy is apparently dependent on the liver's microenvironment and not on the primary tumour. This indicates that our combination therapy could be effective against liver metastases from any type of cancer."

Dr Claire Conche, the second first author, explains: 鈥淲ith this new combination therapy, we attack the immune system from three sides. First, we make the cancer-fighting T cells reactive towards the tumour cells. Then we remove the obstacles facing the cancer-fighting T cells: the suppression cells and shielding by PD-L1."

Professor Florian Greten, director of Georg-Speyer-Haus and spokesperson for the LOEWE Centre 鈥淔rankfurt Cancer Institute", says: 鈥淭he study underlines the pivotal role of the tumour microenvironment in cancer therapy. We have concentrated here on the immune compartment of the tumour microenvironment and how to modulate the immune system in the direction of a strong anti-tumour response. Our data in preclinical models are an encouraging basis for improving immunotherapy options for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and liver metastases."

Publication:
Claire Conche, Fabian Finkelmeier, Marina Pe拧i膰, Adele M Nicolas, Tim W. B枚ttger, Kilian B. Kennel, Dominic Denk, Fatih Ceteci, Kathleen Mohs, Esther Engel, 脰zge Canli, Yasamin Dabiri, Kai-Henrik Peiffer, Stefan Zeuzem, Gabriela Salinas, Thomas Longerich, Huan Yang, Florian R. Greten: Combining ferroptosis induction with MDSC blockade renders primary tumours and metastases in liver sensitive to immune checkpoint blockade. Gut (2022)

Picture download:

Caption:
The light microscope image shows the liver of a diseased mouse in which many tumours have formed. The tumours are slightly darker in colour, have a rounded shape and are demarcated from the healthy tissue (haematoxylin-eosin stain). The new triple therapy reduced these tumours very significantly. Larger, white areas: preparation artefacts; dark spots: cell nuclei. Photo: Fabian Finkelmeier, University Hospital Frankfurt.

Further information:
Professor Florian R. Greten
Georg-Speyer-Haus
Institute for Tumour Biology and Experimental Therapy / 51猎奇 Frankfurt
Tel.: +49 (0)69 63395-232
Greten@gsh.uni-frankfurt.de
Twitter: @FCI_health, @UK_Frankfurt, @goetheuni

Feb 8 2023

12:23

Game Theory Study by theoretical physicist Professor Claudius Gros聽

51猎奇 study: Investors also suffer in unregulated competitions for freely available resources

Uncontrolled competitions for freely accessible resources such as fish stocks or water can have fatal consequences not only for the resources themselves. In such competitions, investors, too, are ultimately driven to their subsistence level, a new game-theoretical study by Professor Claudius Gros, theoretical physicist at 51猎奇, shows.

FRANKFURT. Without regulations for their use, the condition of freely accessible resources such as fish stocks, water or air can deteriorate dramatically. In economics, this is referred to as the "Tragedy of the Commons". In 2009, Elinor Ostrom became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics for her studies on this topic. Ostrom's question of how to prevent this "tragedy" is just as relevant today as it was some 20 years ago.

Game theory deals with situations in which a number of agents compete with each other, with each participant trying to maximize his or her own profit individually. One speaks of a "Nash equilibrium" if players cannot increase their returns further. The "Tragedy of the Commons" is a game theoretical scenario in which the actors do not compete directly, but indirectly: If someone takes a piece of a common pie, there will be less for everybody else.

Instead of investigating how to avoid the "Tragedy of the Commons", Claudius Gros from 51猎奇鈥檚 Institute for Theoretical Physics examined the resulting Nash equilibrium, with unexpected results: If a common good is divided more or less equally among N interested parties, then each receives a share of the order 1/N. However, the respective investment costs still need to be deducted. Gros' calculations show that, in equilibrium, the actors increase their engagement until the resulting investment costs almost reach the value of the resources the individual investor can secure for her- or himself. Mathematically, the theoretical physicist was able to show that the final profit of the individual investor scales as 1/N虏.

The original expectation, that investors each receive a proportional share from the resource, remains correct, as Gros' research shows. However, this does not translate into an overall return of the same proportion, which is smaller by a power in the number of investors. Gros denotes the dramatic deterioration of the net profit as "catastrophic poverty", as it implies that unregulated competition drives the individual actor close to the profitability limit, viz to the subsistence level. Similarly, Gros was able to show that catastrophic poverty can be avoided when the actors cooperate with each other. Cooperation leads to a net profit corresponding to the number of investors in simple power, the classical result.

The result of the investigations is therefore that the "Tragedy of the Commons" can cause substantially more damage than previously assumed. Uncontrolled access not only leads to a potentially excessive exploitation of the resource, a topic that has been the focus of many previous studies. In addition, investors suffer themselves when only maximizing their own profits. Mathematically, Gros was able to show that technological progress intensifies this process and that either all, or the vast majority of participating investors are ultimately affected by catastrophic poverty. If anything, only a few investors 鈥� the oligarchs 鈥� stand to gain more.

Publication: Claudius Gros, 鈥淕eneric catastrophic poverty when selfish investors exploit a degradable common resource鈥�, Royal Society Open Science (2023)

Images for download:

Caption: Professor Claudius Gros, 51猎奇 Frankfurt. Credit: Uwe Dettmar for 51猎奇

Further information
Professor Claudius Gros
Institute for Theoretical Physics
51猎奇 Frankfurt, Germany
Tel. +49 (0)69 798-47818
gros07@itp.uni-frankfurt.de

Feb 2 2023

17:59

Institut franco-allemand de sciences historiques et sociales now under dual Franco-German leadership

Franco-German research as an expression of Franco-German friendship

The Institut franco-allemand de sciences historiques et sociales (Franco-German Institute for Historical and Social Sciences) has a new leadership: After eleven years, Prof. Pierre Monnet has passed the baton on to historian Prof. Xenia von Tippelskirch and historian Dr. habil. Falk Bretschneider.

FRANKFURT. "France owes you a great deal of gratitude" 鈥� those are the words France's ambassador to Germany, H.E. Fran莽ois Delattre, had traveled all the way from Berlin to Frankfurt to say. He was addressing Prof. Pierre Monnet, outgoing director of the Institut franco-allemand de sciences historiques et sociales (IFRA-SHS / Institut fran莽ais Frankfurt). At a ceremony, held in the Trude Simonsohn and Irmgard Heydorn Hall on Goethe University's Westend Campus, Monnet was bid farewell and the new dual leadership introduced. In the future, Prof. Xenia von Tippelskirch and Dr. habil Falk Bretschneider, both historians, will steer the institute's fortunes.

Medieval historian Pierre Monnet served as director of the institute from 2011 to 2022. Initially called Institut fran莽ais d'histoire en Allemagne, it became the Institut franco-allemand de science historiques et sociales in 2015. Having already held a professorship at the 脡cole des hautes 茅tudes en sciences sociales (EHESS) since 2005, Monnet received an adjunct professorship at 51猎奇 in 2013. Under his leadership, the institute's scientific projects and networks were developed further and its impact on Frankfurt's urban society strengthened, with formats such as the "Caf茅 Europa" in the Romanfabrik and the 鈥淓uropaDialoge" as part of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften. In his laudatory speech, Prof. Christophe Duhamelle, Director of the Centre interdisciplinaire d'茅tudes et de recherches sur l'Allemagne Paris, pointed to the deepening and the intensification of Franco-German cooperation as common threads throughout Monnet's tenure.

"51猎奇 thanks Prof. Monnet for his many years of commitment in establishing the IFRA and wishes the new Franco-German dual leadership, who will lead the institute into the future, much ambition, energy and success in the implementation of their plans. IFRA is our clear commitment to Franco-German scientific cooperation and to the strategic partnership with the EHESS. IFRA's research priorities yield synergies with topics pursued not only across all of 51猎奇, but also within the framework of the Rhine-Main University Alliance, and in France," said 51猎奇 President Prof. Enrico Schleiff, adding: "Our actions have a strong signal effect and will promote positive developments in European research."

IFRA-SHS / Institut fran莽ais Frankfurt is a Franco-German institution supported by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE), 51猎奇 and the 脡cole des hautes 茅tudes en sciences sociales (EHESS) Paris. On the one hand, it carries out research and promotes scientific exchange between Germany and France in the field of humanities and social sciences. On the other, as the Institut fran莽ais Frankfurt, it also serves as a French cultural institute that addresses a broad public with a rich cultural program all year round. With its Franco-German directorate, its international team and its dense network of cooperation partners, it is an important component of Franco-German and European academic exchange and intercultural cooperation.

After the previous director Pierre Monnet was seconded from the French EHESS, Falk Bretschneider from EHESS and Xenia von Tippelskirch from 51猎奇 will share responsibility for the institute in the future.

Xenia von Tippelskirch, born 1971, has been working as a professor of history at Goethe University since late 2022. Her focus is on the cultural and religious history of the early modern period; in particular, she has worked on religious practices and knowledge transfer between France and the Holy Roman Empire. Falk Bretschneider, born 1974, has been living and working in France for many years. His research focuses primarily on the history of the Holy Roman Empire and that of early modern criminal justice. Both Tippelskirch and Bretschneider have long been engaged in Franco-German academic cooperation, including directing the Franco-German doctoral college "Thinking Differences", of which 51猎奇 is also to become a partner in the future. Under their leadership, two central research axes will determine IFRA-SHS' work in the coming years: The joint project "Religious Dynamics" and the project "Imperial Spaces". There are numerous other projects at the institute, many of them carried out with partner institutions in Germany or France.

Some 90 guests attended the ceremony held in 51猎奇's casino building, including numerous university researchers as well as several of Frankfurt's cultural figures.

Images for download:

Captions:
Image 1: Matthieu Osmont, Director of the Institut fran莽ais Bonn and Attach茅 of the French Embassy, Dr. Leopoldo Iribarren. Vice President International of the 脡cole des hauts 茅tudes en sciences sociales Paris, H.E. Fran莽ois Delattre, French Ambassador to Germany, Prof. Xenia von Tippelskirch, Prof. Pierre Monnet, University President Prof. Enrico Schleiff, Ilde Gorguet, French Consul General Frankfurt, Dr. habil. Falk Bretschneider, Prof. Rainer Maria Kiesow, Vice President Research of the 脡cole des hautes 茅tudes en sciences sociales. (Photo: J眉rgen Lecher)
Image 2: The Institut franco-allemand's new dual leadership: Falk Bretschneider and Xenia von Tippelskirch. (Photo: J眉rgen Lecher)
Image 3: The new dual leadership with their predecessor: Falk Bretschneider and Xenia von Tippelskirch with Pierre Monnet (center). (Photo: J眉rgen Lecher)

Further information
Dominique Petre
Cultural Officer IFRA-SHS / Institut fran莽ais Frankfurt
dominique.petre@institutfrancais.de
Tel. +49 69 798-31900

Feb 2 2023

14:50

Kathryn Barnes researches iconic German words and their impact

鈥淧litschplatsch鈥� is more credible than simply wet聽

Words like "ratzfatz", "ruckzuck" or "pille-palle" are known as ideophones. Found primarily in spoken language, their role in the language system has scarcely been researched so far. A young linguist at Goethe University wants to change that. She is writing her doctoral thesis on the semantics and pragmatics of ideophones.

FRANKFURT. Natural languages are considered "arbitrary": linguistic signs and their meaning stand in a free relationship to each other and are not based on similarity. As such, someone who does not know the word "book" cannot infer its meaning from either the word's form or its nature.

However, there are also signs with iconic properties that can be used to infer meaning without prior knowledge. One example is gestures and facial expressions: As companions to spoken language, they introduce additional meaningful content. Then there are ideophones 鈥� words that describe meaning by way of 鈥減ainting a sound"; usually they consist of noises or movements. An ideophone can be a verb, an adjective, or an adverb; it describes manner, color, sound, smell, action, state, or intensity. Ideophones are particularly common in African languages, much less so in German. Although they do exist here, too: "zickzack", "holterdiepolter", "ratzfatz", "pille-palle" or "plemplem". These are the kinds of words Kathryn Barnes is interested in.

Not only are they the subject of her dissertation, which she is currently writing, but also of an article recently published in the linguistic journal "Glossa". Her thesis is supervised by linguist Prof. Cornelia Ebert, who coordinates the inter-university German Research Foundation's (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) "Visual Communication. Theoretical, Empirical and Applied Perspectives (ViCom)" research program. With regard to gestures, Ebert has found that they convey meaning on a different level than arbitrary signs. They are less likely to be questioned by the communicative counterpart. Barnes is now exploring whether this can be applied to ideophones.

"Such supposedly special cases can tell us a lot about how language works," Barnes says. Because of the pandemic, Barnes had to carry out the survey on which her study is based as an online experiment. All told, some 40 native German speakers completed the questionnaire, designed to shed light on the usage (pragmatics) and meaning (semantics) of 20 ideophones.

One example uses a scene from 鈥淭he Frog Prince", where the frog climbs 鈥� plitschplatsch 鈥� the stairs to the castle. In one example, he was previously described as wet, in the other, he was described as having been completely dried out by the sun by the time he arrived at the stairs. When the ideophone plitschplatsch was used, the subjects were still able to accept the description even though the statement actually seems illogical. The situation was different when an adverb was used 鈥� much like in the case of gestures, participants expressed less objection to the error when an ideophone was used.

"As far as I know, this is the first experimental work done with German speakers on the at-issue status of ideophones 鈥� and one of the very few ever on the information status of ideophones," says Prof. Cornelia Ebert. In German, at any rate, ideophones, which are used like sentence elements, are "not at issue" 鈥� that is, their truth content is not questioned to the same extent as that of other sentence elements. It remains to be seen whether the insights derived on the basis of German-language ideophones can also be transferred to other languages, especially to those in which the use of ideophones is much more common than in German.

But why do ideophones (like gestures) have a higher credibility? Is it because they create images in the mind, i.e. they are perceived on a different level of understanding? Kathryn Barnes wants to explore this further, and also include other languages in her research, such as Spanish.

Publication: Barnes, K. R. & Ebert, C. & H枚rnig, R. & Stender, T., (2022) 鈥淭he at-issue status of ideophones in German: An experimental approach", Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 7(1). doi:

Further information
Kathryn Barnes
Research Associate
Institute for Linguistics
51猎奇
Tel: +49 (0)69 798-32401
barnes@lingua.uni-frankfurt.de