Research in Germany

Dr. Liana Khamidullina, a postdoctoral researcher at Technische Universität Ilmenau, has been awarded the Best Ph.D. Award by the European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP). In her award-winning doctoral thesis, she developed new methods for processing and analyzing multidimensional signal data for interdisciplinary applications, including wireless communications, radar technology, and biomedicine. She received the award today (September 1, 2026), during the opening and awards ceremony of the international EUSIPCO 2026 conference in Bruges, Belgium.

Researchers at Helmholtz Munich, the Heidelberg Faculty of Medicine at Heidelberg University, the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD) and the Technical University of Munich (TUM), have identified a previously unknown mechanism that can drive cancer cachexia – a wasting process in the body that primarily affects muscle and fat tissue. A central role is played by a protein secreted by tumors, known as ADAMTSL4: It locally activates the TGF-β signaling pathway in muscle and fat tissue, thereby triggering a catabolic program. The findings identify ADAMTSL4 as a potential new target for future therapies against cancer cachexia.

Researchers at Constructor University and Constructor Labs have developed BiteNetI, a deep-learning model that locates the binding sites of 14 biologically important ion types directly in three-dimensional protein structures. The model only needs several seconds per structure and reaches two- to three-fold higher accuracy than most existing predictors such as Google DeepMind's AlphaFold3. The study, authored by Igor Kozlovskii and Petr Popov, has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Communications Biology, a Nature Portfolio journal. The tool provides an open-access platform that could help accelerate drug discovery and the understanding of protein function.

There has been a rapid increase in cardiovascular and metabolic conditions in sub-Saharan Africa. What is the link between sustainable diets that are nutritious, environmentally friendly, economically affordable, and socioculturally acceptable, and cardiometabolic conditions? An international research team led by Prof. Dr. Ina Danquah, Hertz Chair for Innovation for Planetary Health in the Transdisciplinary Research Area “Sustainable Futures” and Director at Center for Development Research (ZEF) at University of Bonn, investigated this question among Ghanaian adults who live in various locations.

CirculaTUM, the interdisciplinary research network of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), has been researching the decarbonization of the automotive sector since the beginning of the year. The findings of the most comprehensive study in this field to date reveal substantial misdirection in the European Union’s climate policy regulation. They were presented today, Tuesday, September 1, 2026, at a press briefing at TUM in Munich.

Prof. Joanna Wardlaw is one of a group of scientists who have been trying for decades to solve one of the great mysteries of brain ageing. Why do some older people lose their independence more quickly than others? The Scottish clinician and brain researcher is not looking for the answer in individual changes to the brain, but in the bigger picture. A term has now become established for this new perspective on the ageing brain: brain frailty.