Technology Offers

Metal-insulator-metal (MIM) diodes are very promising for application as rectennas for solar energy harvesting, photo-detectors and high frequency mixers. Good MIM diode performance requires a high asymmetry, a strong nonlinearity, a large responsively, as well as a low resistance or a high on-current. These figures of merit are mainly determined by the work function difference of the electrodes, and the barrier height between the insulator and the electrode materials. In the design of MIM diodes, ...

Reversible adhesion can be used to transfer or to manipulate objects. Especially if the objects are small and/or fragile their manipulation become very challenging. Intermolecular forces such as Van-der-Waals can be used to achieve a strong adhesion between the objects. Moreover, surface functionalization and the creation of nano- and microstructures can be used to improve these adhesion properties. Unfortunately, the adhesion becomes insufficient if the surfaces are wet or rough. Another problems ...

With approximately 600,000 deaths annually colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancer types worldwide. Early cancer and pre-cancer (polyps) detection by colonoscopy over the age of 50 until now is the best strategy for disease control and the chance of the cancer to be curable. Epigenetic changes such as DNA methylation has been shown to occur already at early stages of tumor development making such differentially methylated regions (DMRs) highly attractive for biomarker development ...

Cancer remains a major health burden and is the second leading cause of death globally (WHO). The microenvironment of cancer cells plays an important role in disease progression. In particular, the composition of the extracellular matrix regulates angiogenesis, cell proliferation, differentiation, cell survival and apoptosis. Dysregulation and accumulation of the extracellular matrix promotes cellular transformation and metastasis leading to cancer progression. A better understanding of the role ...

Remodeling the morphology of mitochondria to manipulate immune cell metabolism and hence reduce immune cell activation and effector functions

In contrast to target-based drug discovery, phenotypic screening discloses the effect of a compound on a biological system without revealing its mode of action or its interaction sites. Phenotypic screening has delivered several new valuable drugs, however, the major challenge remains target deconvolution (1). In recent years, “omics” techniques and bioinformatics have brought significant advances to target identification in drug discovery phenotypic screening. However, such analyses can become ...

The study of mechanical properties of materials at high temperatures at the microstructural length scale requires dedicated testing setups. An accurate measurement of the sample temperature is vital for reliable testing. Most of the successful current testing platforms record the temperatures of the sample and tip near the heating sources but not at the respective surface. As a consequence, due to spatial and temporal thermal gradients a reliable surface temperature cannot be measured today. Even ...

Conventional mechanical zippers find manifold applications for luggage, clothing or even industrial applications. However, their design features significant disadvantages. In particular, they require the use of both hands by the user to align the ends of the garment and lock the insertion pin into the slider. This mechanism can be prone to jamming and failure and more generally requires the user to free his or her hands. The user must further use one or both hands to move the slider along the ...

A family of 16-electron binary Ni(0)-stilbene complexes Ni(^Rstb)₃ as a new class of air-stable Ni(0) (pre)catalysts was developed.

Anti-IgG secondary antibodies are major tools for the detection or immobilization of primary antibodies in approaches such as western blotting, ELISA, Co-IP and immunofluorescence. Polyclonal anti-IgG secondary antibodies are produced in animals, such as mouse, rabbit, rat, and goat and are directed against the IgG classes of these animals. Thus, the generation of such secondary antibodies requires the keeping and use of a large number of animals, which is not only costly but also a major ethical ...

PC-based software to construct lattice sections and clusters/molecules with extended graphical display and analysis options.

BiQ Analyzer is a software tool for easy visualization and quality control of DNA methylation data. With more than a thousand users worldwide, BiQ Analyzer has become a standard tool for processing DNA methylation data from bisulfite sequencing. BiQ Analyzer has been selected by ABI to be part of the Applied Biosystems Software Community Program.

Carbon fixation is arguably the most important biochemical processes on earth, supporting our biosphere by transforming inorganic carbon into organic matter and literally feeding all life forms. The reductive pentose phosphate cycle (rPP, also known as the Calvin–Benson–Bassham Cycle) is responsible for ≥95% of the carbon fixed in the biosphere. Although under a strong selective pressure for eons, this process displays major inefficiencies, some are due to the low catalytic rate and the ...

CellNetAnalyzer (CNA) is a MATLAB toolbox providing various computational methods for analyzing structure and function of metabolic, signaling, and regulatory networks. For metabolic networks, CNA supports a variety of stoichiometric and constraint-based modeling techniques, including flux balance analysis (FBA), metabolic flux analysis, elementary-modes analysis, or computational strain design (e.g., minimal cut set analysis). Signal transduction and (gene) regulatory networks can be ...

Applying high voltages in vacuum applications requires feedthroughs, which electrically insulate the conductor from the vacuum chamber whilst being vacuum-tight. In high- and ultrahigh vacuum environments, the materials used need to be low in outgassing rates. The current technology for feedthroughs withstanding tens to hundreds of kilovolts relies on vacuum-tight ceramic to metal connections, which are heavy, fragile and prone to contamination. Commercially available feedthroughs are stand-alone ...

The function of brain tissue is based on the dynamics of numerous nerve cells and their synaptic interaction. Direct electrical interfacing of semiconductors and nerve cells is the physical basis for a systematic development of hybrid neuroelectronic devices, such as neurocomputers and neuroprostheses. Excited nerve cells and field-effect transistors are coupled by a dissipative mechanism: ionic current through the adherent cell membrane flows along the electrical resistance of a narrow layer ...

Engineering light distributions in a three-dimensional volume to achieve selective illumination profiles is an instrumental task shared by many optical and microscopy techniques. The optimization of the light distribution can lead to significant enhancement of relevant performance figures and ultimately to the extension of the instrument or experimental protocol capabilities^1,2,3,4,5. Targeted illumination profiles can be used either to mechanically interact with molecules at nanometer ...

Resistance induced heating of electrical wiring during operation is one of the limiting factors to design high-power electromagnetic coils. The commonly used approach to eliminate the heating of electrical wires is to introduce a hollow conductive copper wire into electrical wiring and to cool this wire with water. Unfortunately, this approach is not applicable for high power density electromagnetic coil as well as for coils with small dimensions. Another approach to enhance the cooling properties ...

An Enhancement Cavity (EC) with at least one toroidal and/or cylindrical mirror is described. This allows for an arbitrary beam ellipticity of the eigenmode. In particular at a stability edge, where the ellipticity diverges with purely spherical optics, a round beam can be obtained.

Semiconductor nanowires are of vital importance for many applications, such as flexible electronics, photonics, sensors, and energy harvesting and storage devices. As standard fabrication procedure, vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth employs metal catalyst particles (such as gold) as seeds for growth of nanowires. The seeds are deposited on a solid substrate, melted by heating and then exposed to a gas atmosphere containing source materials of the semiconductor. When the metal droplets are supersaturated, ...

A double KO, a conditional KO as well as single KO mouse models for FFA2 and FFA3 (free fatty acid receptors 2 and 3), novel targets for diabetes therapies.

We offer a new simple and low cost technology to fabricate graphene-encapsulated metal or metal compound nanoparticles. The resulting hybrid nanoparticles are protected by granted substance claims in US, CN, TW and EP (DE, FR, GB, BE). Currently the patent protected graphene coated nano particles are discussed as high performance electrode materials in the lithium ion battery business (for example Samsung's "Graphene Balls").

The CRISPR-Cas system is a powerful tool for site-specific genome editing. It allows for the inactivation or substitution of entire genes. However, most hereditary diseases in humans are caused by single point mutations, the correction of which requires only subtle changes to the DNA. Recently, base editors (BEs) were developed that allow the introduction of selective nucleotide substitutions. A Cas9 enzyme is fused to a nucleobase deaminase catalysing C-to-T mutations (by C-to-U deamination) ...

A laser device (100), configured for generating laser pulses, has a laser resonator (10) with a gain disk medium (11) and a Kerr medium (12). The laser resonator (10) includes a first mode shaping section (13) which is adapted for shaping a circulating electric field coupled into the gain disk medium (11), and a second mode shaping section (14), which is adapted for shaping the circulating electric field coupled into the Kerr medium (12) independently of the electric field shaping in the first ...

The LITESEC-T3SS (Light-induced translocation of effectors through sequestration of endogenous components of the T3SS) system represents a novel, fast, specific, and reversible method to control protein secretion into eukaryotic cells, enabling various medicinal and biotechnological applications, such as targeted drug delivery for tumor therapy.

MARS is a powerful program for robust automatic backbone assignment of proteins. MARS is applicable to proteins with extreme chemical shift degeneracy such as high molecular weight proteins and partially disordered or fully intrinsically disordered proteins. MARS is successfully used in many labs world-wide as evidenced by a huge number of citations.

Errors in super-resolution microscopy (SRM) can be identified with pairs of emitters that have fixed and precisely known relative positions. Such reference and calibration structures are exceedingly rare on the nanoscale. Here, Nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond (NVs) offer a formidable solution. These fluorescent defects are photo-stable and due to the excellent properties of their brilliant host, do not diffuse and are resilient against temperature or chemical environment changes.

On ...

Exploiting the benefits offered by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at ultra-high fields (≥ 7 Tesla) requires optimized radiofrequency (RF) coils. MRI at UHF operates in a regime where the RF wavelength is comparable to the dimensions of the sample size, resulting in an inhomogeneous distribution of the transmit field (B₁⁺) and in an impaired image quality. An array of independent transmit coils arranged in multiple rows provides the degrees of freedom to influence the ...

We offer a new family of cationic ligands, namely N-alkyl/aryl pyridiniophosphines. The ligands can be synthesized through a short, scalable, and highly modular route.

Evaluation of their electronic properties evidenced weak σ-donor and quite strong π-acceptor character when used as ancillary ligands.

File no.: MI-1012-4430-LI-ZE
(liked to MI-1012-5677-LI-ZE describing the generation of human neural microtissues from NECS cells)

A novel precursor population that forms electrophysiologically functional neurons more quickly than protocols starting with hPSCs.

Extremely sensitive, reliable and fast novel KDAC assay, which can be performed in a continuous format. This novel KDAC assay is based on Firefly luciferase harboring an acetylation on an essential active site lysine, incorporated by genetic code expansion. We furthermore offer a bacterial selection system for KDACs, which uses a reporter enzyme inactivated by lysine modifications at an essential active site residue, thereby linking deacetylase activity to a selectable output.

Biomarkers of ageing have long been sought after to help assess the biological age and general health status of individuals. Considerable efforts have been invested to identify such biomarkers, including physiologic readouts, metabolic parameters, glycomic profiles and others. Nevertheless, markers with strong predictive power have remained elusive.

Work in model organisms has identified several conserved signaling pathways that extend life span, such as reduced insulin/IGF signaling and ...

The Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in collaboration with the Institute of Biotechnology and Drug Research (IBWF) developed novel lignin nanocarriers that can be used for smart pesticide delivery in plants for crop protection. The nanocarriers are characterised by a narrow size distribution and an easy manufacturing, furthermore, they can be loaded with hydrophobic pesticides. Injected to plants, the nanocarriers act as a safe store of pesticide, which is released in situ by lignin degrading ...

Researchers of the Max-Planck-Institute for Colloids and Interfaces and the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute (PEI) have developed a novel codon-specific elongation model (COSEM), that is based on the question how codon bias affects protein expression in combination with a deep understanding of protein synthesis.

Scientists in the group of Atmospheric Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have developed a novel thiosulfate based ozone scrubber to ensure accurate measurements of trace analytes. It is known from the literature that commercial potassium iodide (KI) containing ozone scrubbers can cause errors in the measurement of carbonyl compounds such as aldehydes and ketones due to byproducts formed from the oxidation of KI. Commercial ozone scrubbers based on sodium thiosulfate ...

Playful is a scripting language for orchestration of Python modules. Playful allows developers to both organize the logic of activation in reactive behaviour tree and setup sensory-motor couplings, making it especially useful for robotics

A computer-implemented method that allows calculating concentration ranges of components within complex networks of biochemical reactions.

X-ray Detector Software for processing single-crystal monochromatic diffraction data recorded by the rotation method.

SIMNRA is a Microsoft Windows program for the simulation of energy spectra for ion beam analysis with incident ions from about 100 keV to many MeV. SIMNRA can be used for the simulation of Rutherford backscattering (RBS), elastic backscattering with non-Rutherford cross-sections (EBS), nuclear reaction analysis (NRA), elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA), and medium energy ion scattering (MEIS). Almost 3000 different non-Rutherford and nuclear reactions cross-sections for incident protons, ...

Im Zuge der stetigen Weiterentwicklung und Nachfrage auf dem Gebiet der minimal invasiven Chirugie wurde am Max-Planck-Institut für intelligente Systeme in Stuttgart im Team von Herrn Prof Sitti für patientenfreundliche Magen-Darm-Untersuchungen ein kabelloses kapselförmiges Endoskop in Pillengröße, das sogenannte "B-MASCE" entwickelt. Die aus einem Elastomer bestehende Kapsel dient hierbei sowohl als Gehäuse als auch als Federelement für die Nadel. Über in der Kapsel eingebaute Magnete ...

SUMOvera enables versatile purification strategies for broad applications in eukaryotic hosts.

An apparatus and method allowing high throughput collection of X-ray diffraction data at room temperature.

DISLIN is a high level library of subroutines and functions that display data graphically. It is intended to be a powerful and easy to use software package for programmers and scientists that does not require knowledge of hardware features. The software is available for the programming languages C/C++, Fortran 77 and Fortran 90/95. For some operating systems, the languages Perl, Python, Java, Ruby, TCL and the C/C++ interpreter Ch are also supported.

DISLIN can display graphic information ...

Unique multifunctional oligonucleotide for the ultrafast transcriptome-wide identification of RNA-binding protein (RBP) targets.