Whether on a car, a garden fence, or a ship: a coat of paint protects against rust. But water takes its toll on any coating—from a rain shower to ocean waves. Until now, the damage was primarily attributed to mechanical wear on the surface or to interactions with acidic components in the droplets. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research have now identified a previously unknown factor in collaboration with the University of Bonn: the electrical charge of water droplets. They show that this charge damages surfaces over time—an effect that could open up new approaches for more durable coatings. Their findings were now published in the scientific journal “Nature”. 

RESEARCH TICKER UNIVERSITY OF BONN: A team of researchers from the University of Bonn, Heidelberg University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico has studied the critical behavior of light particles (photons) close to a phase transition. 

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in Germany. In the search for new therapeutic approaches that target the uncontrolled growth of tumor cells, a class of enzymes known as cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) has come into focus. This is because this family of enzymes plays a fundamental role in gene expression and cell division. An overview of the current state of research on the transcriptional regulation of CDKs and the prospects for cancer treatment was compiled by Prof. Matthias Geyer of the University Hospital Bonn and the University of Bonn in collaboration with Prof. Robert P. Fisher of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and has now been published in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. 

The greenhouses of the future are set to see ever-greater human-robot collaboration, and a team led by Professor Maren Bennewitz from the University of Bonn together with partners from Taiwan is using artificial intelligence to study the basic principles needed to make this happen. In their project, entitled “Learning Expert-Guided Crop Intervention through Human-in-the-Loop LLM Robotics” (or “AgriLoop” for short), the groups from the two countries are investigating how greenhouse robots will be able to work more closely with agricultural experts with the aid of natural-language interaction.

Researchers at the University Hospital of Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn have identified a previously unknown signaling pathway in the immune system that helps newborn heart cells survive and regenerate after injury. The findings could open new avenues for future therapies aimed at repairing damaged adult hearts after heart attacks or chronic cardiovascular disease. The study has now been published in the journal Cell Communication and Signaling (Springer Nature). 

The University of Bonn remains among the universities with the strongest track records for research in Europe in 2026, retaining 4th spot in Germany and 11th in the EU in the recently published Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), better known as the Shanghai Ranking. Germany’s most successful University of Excellence also took 69th place in a global comparison, meaning that it is still one of the best 100 universities in the world.