Biomedical research at the Faculty aims to identify disease mechanisms at the molecular level and to develop biotechnological methods that can be used to influence these processes in order to develop more precise diagnostics and novel active substances.

The focus of the working groups on "Water Research" is on questions relating to the development, changes and restoration of aquatic biodiversity from the level of genes and species communities to ecosystems and their function. In addition to basic research, the focus is on interdisciplinary, application-oriented research projects.

The research focus on subject-related empirical teaching and learning research investigates questions relating to the learning and teaching of biology at school, at university or at extracurricular learning venues. In cooperation with other working groups in subject didactics and teaching-learning research, they also investigate interdisciplinary questions. They are integrated into the Interdisciplinary Center for Educational Research (IZfB) and the Center for Teacher Education (ZLB).

The Faculty of Biology mourns the loss of Prof. Dr Maren Elisabeth Anneliese Jochimsen, who passed away on 23 October 2024 at the age of 89.
Prof Dr Jochimsen studied biology in Kiel and completed her doctorate at the University of Insbruck in 1961 on the development of vegetation in the foothills of the Rotmoos and Gaisbergferner in the Öztal valley. She was one of the first women to be appointed to a professorship in the Department of Biology, Geography and Landscape Architecture and held the Chair of Geobotany at the University of Essen until 2000.
The dedicated lecturer taught students about plant sociology and the evolution of plant communities. Her scientific legacy is still visible to everyone in the Ruhr region today: she has supported the greening of spoil tips in various projects. She was also involved in applied projects abroad, e.g. in research projects on the drought resistance of arable plant communities in Ethiopia.
Our sympathy and condolences go to her family and bereaved.

Automated analysis of German insect diversity

• Birte Vierjahn
• 10.10.2024

How do you protect what you don't know? Until now, global society has been faced with this impossible task in view of the worldwide insect decline. Biologists from the University of Duisburg-Essen and the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung have now developed a cost-effective workflow with laboratory robots for the first time, with which they can analyse almost 2,000 samples from Malaise traps* in parallel and almost in real time. The genetic information reveals which of the many thousands of species occur where and thus provides a basis for conservation measures. Molecular Ecology Resources reports.

UDE scientists involved in reference and reference work

• Astrid Bergmeister
• 04.10.2024

The “Biodiversity Fact Check” is the first comprehensive report to show the actual state of biodiversity in Germany. More than 150 authors from 75 institutions contributed to the comprehensive inventory. With a team of 17, Prof. Dr. Christian Feld from the Aquatic Biology Department at the University of Duisburg-Essen played a leading role in the evaluation of over 700 literature sources on inland waters and floodplains. The results of the BMBF-funded project were presented in Berlin on September 30, 2024.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen and the Westphalian University has successfully acquired research project funding from the renowned Joint Genome Institute of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL), Department of Energy of the USA to decode the genetic material of the algae collection of the University of Duisburg-Essen. After years of intensive development, the scientific algae collection is one of the largest in the world with more than 7000 strains.

UDE researchers use DNA origami method

• von Jennifer Meina
• 29.07.2024

Artificial nanofactories are tiny workshops made from the human body's own molecules that are precisely designed and constructed according to a blueprint. In the future, they could help to better recognise disease markers or environmental toxins, for example, or serve as highly specific catalysts for energy conversion and storage. Researchers at the University of Duisburg-Essen have developed a model that regulates the unfolding and degradation of proteins using compartmentalisation strategies – which could open up new ways of developing artificial nanofactories. Their results have now been published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Publication in Cell Chemical Biology

   26.07.2024

Researchers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) have jointly succeeded in identifying and synthesising a group of molecules that act in a new way against the pathogen that causes tuberculosis. In the scientific journal Cell Chemical Biology, they describe that the so-called callyaerins have a fundamentally different effect than previous antibiotic agents against the infectious disease.