Artificial intelligence (AI) is designed to make our health system even more efficient. Yet cyberattacks are capable not only of jeopardizing patient safety but also impairing medical devices and hindering the work of emergency responders. With the “SecureNeuroAI” project, researchers from the University of Bonn, University Hospital Bonn and FIZ Karlsruhe – the Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure are aiming to develop secure, AI-powered methods for detecting medical emergencies in real time using the example of epileptic seizures, although their findings should be applicable to many other areas. The Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) is providing almost €2.5 million in funding over a three-year period.

A current study by the German Familial Colorectal Cancer Consortium is looking at the question of which people with Lynch syndrome are at an increased risk of developing a second colorectal cancer. Researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), the University of Bonn and the University of Leipzig have now published their findings in the journal "Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology".

As far as the early-career researcher is concerned, water is also the elixir of life in a scientific sense: Dr. Clarissa Glaser, a hydrologist at the University of Bonn, has been investigating H₂O in a truly unique way. In a project funded by the Klaus Tschira Stiftung, she has set out to model how the water in rivers and streams all over the world is exchanged with that in the surrounding landscape, e.g. in littoral zones, stream sediment or floodplains. 

Asthma medications often lose their effectiveness over time, and do not prevent the bronchial tissue from thickening. Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum, the University of Bonn, and Bonn University Hospital, have successfully tested a plant-based agent that combats this dreaded remodeling process. Derived from the coralberry Ardisia crenata, the agent inhibits a specific protein, thus ensuring that less collagen accumulates in the bronchial tissue. Less mucus is produced and secreted as well. The researchers report their findings in the journal Molecular Therapy. 

Humanity has an insatiable appetite for ammonia: this substance is used to make fertilizer, which in turn is used in most modern agriculture. Until now, the Haber-Bosch process has been the method of choice for extracting nitrogen from the seemingly inexhaustible atmosphere and binding it in the form of ammonia. However, this method requires an extremely large amount of methane gas and energy. Prof. Nikolay Kornienko from the University of Bonn has discovered a more climate-friendly alternative for producing ammonia from renewable energy sources. The research team is now presenting its findings in the journal Nature Communications.

During a heart attack, heart muscle cells die and are replaced by scar tissue. This delays the electrical conduction in the heart and favours the onset of cardiac arrhythmia. To reduce this potentially life-threatening complication, researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn intended to partially restore electrical conduction in the scar tissue. To this end, they developed a gene therapy in mice to enrich the gap junction protein connexin 43 in the scar area in order to improve electrical conduction. By this approach, the research team could significantly reduce the frequency of arrhythmia in lesioned hearts. The results are recently published in the Journal of Physiology.

Large language models, such as ChatGPT, perform significantly less well in Portuguese than in English despite both languages being spoken worldwide. This gap has now been closed with "GigaVerbo". The team led by Dr. Nicholas Kluge Corrêa from the Center for Science and Thought at the University of Bonn is now presenting the project in the journal "Patterns". The researchers were among the first to utilize the new "Marvin" supercomputer at the University of Bonn. Nicholas Kluge Corrêa and his colleague Aniket Sen are both members of the Transdisciplinary Research Area "Sustainable Futures" at the University of Bonn.

Thanks to a student initiative, four plantbox seating islands were recently created at Poppelsdorf Campus, making this area of the University of Bonn greener and more inviting. The plantboxes promote biodiversity, improve the climate and make the campus a more pleasant place to be.