The audience in the packed hall of the DIGITALHUB experienced eight high-caliber pitches on innovative ideas at the final of the University of Bonn's 2024 ideas competition. The pitch event, now in its fourth year, once again demonstrated the innovative potential of students and researchers at the university. In the end, three ideas convinced the expert jury: “Hoya Institut NRW” and “Cytosphere X” each won €1,000 from the Bonn University Foundation and Comma Soft AG. The idea “Parnox – Pioneering AI-based medical coding” received the Digital Startup Prize from DIGITALHUB.

A deficiency in blood plasma coagulation factor XIII leads to a disruption in the cross-linking of fibrin, the "glue" in blood coagulation. The enzyme therefore plays an essential role in blood clotting. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn, together with Thermo Fisher Scientific in the Netherlands, deciphered the previously unknown structure of the Factor XIII complex using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), even at the atomic level. This enabled them to visualize the effects of disease-causing, clinically relevant factor XIII mutations in the structure of the coagulation complex. Their results have now been published in the print edition of the journal “Blood”.

In recognition of her excellent research work, Prof. Dr. Angkana Rüland receives the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, which is endowed with 2.5 million euros. The German Research Foundation (DFG) announced this today. The researcher from the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (HCM) at the University of Bonn is honored with the award for her outstanding work. The mathematician at the Cluster of Excellence HCM is being recognized for her outstanding work in mathematical analysis, particularly on models for microstructures in phase transitions in solids and inverse problems with non-local operators. The highly endowed prize permits a large degree of freedom in research. 

In the new Sustainability Rankings of ranking provider Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the University of Bonn has emerged as one of the world’s top 100 universities. Climbing 43 slots, the institution now ranks 95th worldwide, showing very good results in many of the ranking categories.

How were anti-Semitism, fear and children's scare stories connected in late 19th and early 20th-century Europe? This is the question being investigated by Professor Robert Braun of the University of California Berkeley. An Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellow, Braun spent nearly a year at the University of Bonn working under Professor Ove Sutter of the Department of Empirical Cultural Studies and Cultural Anthropology to explore archived material from the Atlas of German Folklore. 

How can the reconstruction of the Ahrtal valley be made socially just and resilient? This is the question being studied by the “Social, Economic and Administrative Challenges of Climate Resilience” project (“Soziale, Ökonomische und Administrative Herausforderungen von Klima-Resilienz,” or SOZIAHR). It involves an interdisciplinary team of economists, legal scholars, geographers, sociologists and political scientists and is being funded by the Individuals & Societies Transdisciplinary Research Area at the University of Bonn. 

Not one but two researchers at the University of Bonn and the University Hospital Bonn are to receive much-sought-after Consolidator Grants. Awarded by the European Research Council (ERC), they provide millions of euros in funding for outstanding research projects. Professor Philipp Vollmuth is developing an AI foundation model that is expected to set new benchmarks for the use of AI in radiology, while Privatdozent Dr. med. Michael Sommerauer—who recently swapped the University of Cologne for Bonn—is researching the early detection of Parkinson’s disease.

The consumption of milk products, eggs and fish has a positive effect on childhood development in Africa. This has been demonstrated in a recent study by the CABI's regional centre for Africa in Nairobi, Kenya and the University of Bonn. The researchers used representative data from five African countries with over 32,000 child observations. If the children had a diet containing animal products, they suffered less from malnutrition and related developmental deficiencies. The study has now been published in the journal PNAS.