For a two day visit at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bonn welcomed 14 medical students accompanied by the deputy director of the teaching office of the Shanghai East International Medical Centre and a research associate from Tongji University in Shanghai. During a varied program, the guests from China were given an insight into studies and research at the Faculty of Medicine Bonn. The aim of the visit was to discuss specialist topics and future exchange opportunities.

How do insects perceive mechanical stress? This is a question of interest in many different fields including comparative morphology, neurobiology and robotics. A team led by Dr. Brian Saltin of the Bonn Institute of Organismic Biology has developed a computer model to study the fruit fly Drosophila, focusing on the creature’s tiny sensory organs for perceiving mechanical stress located near its leg joints. Using this newly developed model, the researchers have been able to study how the position, orientation and material properties of these sensors influence their function. Simulations run have shown how in normal forward walking these sensory organs appear not to be activated solely through the force of footfall. The findings have now been published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

The North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts has welcomed 12 high-caliber researchers and artists into its ranks in 2025, including Professor Frank Bradke from the University of Bonn and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE).

Dr. Katharina C. Cramer, Nicolas Rüffin, and Dr. Kristofer Rolf Söderström have successfully made the transition from researchers to entrepreneurs and founded the start-up TILLER ALPHA GmbH in early 2025. “It’s important to us to communicate this change of roles openly,” emphasizes Katharina. Their clients, like themselves, come from the scientific community: TILLER ALPHA provides data-driven and AI-supported analyses for research infrastructures. Katharina also explored this topic in her research at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS) at the University of Bonn. In this interview, she explains their business idea, the start-up journey, and the support they received from the Transfer Center enaCom.

The University of Bonn’s Global Heritage Lab is hosting not one but two exhibitions that explore colonialism in its impact, consequences and resulting enmeshments. The exhibitions are open until October 12 at P26.

The universities of Cologne, Bonn, Düsseldorf and Aachen agreed to establish a joint academic institution (Gemeinsame Wissenschaftliche Einrichtung, GWE) on 1 January 2025. The contractual partners will thereby be transforming the West German Genome Center (WGGC) from its current form as a collaborative research network into a new kind of institution. Newly founding the center as a GWE ensures that the partners can maintain already existing structures and further develop established technologies.

The University of Bonn's rowing teams once again proved their endurance and class at this year's EUREGA. At the traditional long-distance regatta on the Rhine - from Neuwied and from the Loreley to Bonn over a distance of 45 and 100 kilometers respectively - the boats from Bonn achieved excellent placings.

The marine bacterium Alcanivorax borkumensis feeds on oil, multiplying rapidly in the wake of oil spills, and thereby accelerating the elimination of the pollution, in many cases. It does this by producing an “organic dishwashing liquid” which it uses to attach itself to oil droplets. Researchers from the University of Bonn, RWTH Aachen University, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and research center Forschungszentrum Jülich have now discovered the mechanism by which this “organic dishwashing liquid” is synthesized. Published in the prominent international journal Nature Chemical Biology, the research findings could allow the breeding of more efficient strains of oil-degrading bacteria.