Bioengineering

As an example of our clinical translation efforts, pursued in close collaboration with researchers from the Computational Health and Diabetes Center, we empowered advanced optoacoustic imaging with specialized lasers, detectors, model-based reconstructions, and explainable AI. We reported, for the first time, the diagnostic correlation of diabetes progression with over 30 cutaneous features captured by an optoacoustic skin scan. Moreover, we developed the first non-invasive opto-acoustic technology to measure blood glucose levels deep in the capillaries, with already projected clinical validation in humans to potentially eliminate the need for needles in diabetes management.

Examining diabetes with a skin scanner and AI
Non-invasive Glucose Sensing in Blood

Innovative platforms such as wildDISCO for whole-body protein mapping in animals, DELiVR for brain activity quantification, and DISCO-MS for spatial proteomics reveal unprecedented, system-level biological insights into morphological and functional changes caused by metabolic and other disorders.

WildDISCO: Visualizing Whole Bodies in Unprecedented Detail

DELiVR: Advanced Brain Science without Coding Expertise
Novel spatial-omics technology enables investigation of diseases at their early stages

We have developed advanced iPSC-based human tissue engineering platforms for more patient-centric and animal-free research. Our vascularized adipose tissue on chips, developed jointly with the Helmholtz Diabetes Center, supports stem cell-derived endothelial cell maturation under gravity-driven flow, enabling functional barrier formation and arterial toning. Our open microfluidic design is compatible with advanced analytical tools such as scRNAseq, proteomics, and newly developed AI tools to predict differentiation trajectories, thus illustrating the feasibility of effective in vitro modeling of early-onset diseases like crucial features of the metabolic syndrome, or the onsets of atherosclerosis and cancer.

Organ-on-Chip

Through the combination of optoacoustic imaging and light-driven signal modulation (photoswitching), we enable the visualization of cells and the distribution of key molecules that govern cellular function in whole live organisms at unprecedented dynamic and (super-)resolution. Together with the Molecular Target and Therapies Center we employ semi-rational structure-guided protein engineering to design new photo-switchable proteins.

A Light in the Dark Tissue: Switchable Proteins for Biomedical Imaging

Our novel EXSISERS technology facilitates the real-time monitoring of alternatively spliced mRNA translation into specific protein isoforms, being readily applied to study tau protein variants in neurodegeneration. INSPECT is a novel genetic system to monitor non-coding gene expression using reporters located within intronic sequences. We also introduced a set of genetically encoded EM-readable barcodes. Equivalent to fluorescent proteins in light microscopy, these EMcapsulins make so far invisible structures visible at EM resolution. When correlated with fluorescence channels, such barcodes enable the discovery of ultrastructure-function relationships in organoids and in in vivo models.

The Cut and Restore Protein Trick: Self-Excising Designer Proteins Report Isoform Expression
Molecular monitoring of RNA regulation
Electron microscopy: Nano-reporter proteins make invisible processes visible