ZiMT Journal Club

Research in nanomedicine spans a multitude of areas, including drug delivery, pathogen identification, diagnostic and imaging tools, high-throughput screening platforms, etc. Many of these developments are starting to be translated into viable clinical products. Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanopart... Continue

The lives of humans and bacteria are inseparable. Bacteria predominantly grow as biofilms, which are complex communities of cells forming on almost any kind of surface. For better, biofilms protect plant roots and give taste to cheese. For worse, they cause numerous chronic infections that defy anti... Continue

Decoding the neural processing of speech

Understanding speech in noisy backgrounds requires selective attention to a particular speaker. Humans excel at this challenging task, while current speech recognition technology still struggles when background noise is loud. The neural mechanisms by whic... Continue

The rapid development of CAD/CAM technology is already noticeable in many areas of dentistry. It allows manufacturing processes related to dental restorations to be carried out more accurately and faster in many aspects. A prerequisite for this success is the highly precise three-dimensional transfe... Continue

Aseptic implant loosening is one of the five most common causes of implant revision in hip and knee arthroplasty [1]. The assessment of implant anchoring over time is carried out in orthopedics using imaging methods, which aid in assessing the movement between the implant and the bone surrounding th... Continue

Interfacing the intact and damaged nervous system
We move, eat, and breath through the combined activation of groups of muscles. Muscle force is controlled by coordinated sequences of motoneuronal discharge timings. The alpha-motoneurons in the ventral horn of the spinal cord represent the “final c... Continue

How mechanics regulate biological processes in the nervous system
The development of the central nervous system (CNS) includes the formation of neuronal axons, their subsequent growth and guidance through thick layers of nervous tissue, and the folding of the brain. All these processes involve moti... Continue

X-Ray Phase-Contrast
Early detection of cancer and angiography applications are just two examples that can directly benefit from an imaging modality with excellent soft-tissue contrast. X-ray grating interferometry is promising to achieve this while keeping radiation dose and examination costs low.... Continue

Effects of Immobilization, Microgravity, and Physical Activity on the Human Body, specifically on Cartilage and Bone Tissue
Healthy articular cartilage is a prerequisite for proper joint function, and thus for unrestricted physical activity. In synovial joints, articular cartilage provides joint c... Continue

Translational Imaging with Multispectral Optoacoustic Tomography
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most common fatal genetic muscle disease in male newborns. It leads to muscle degeneration and inflammation, resulting in loss of physical muscle function. State-of-the-art technologies and rad... Continue

‘Clinical evaluation’ means a systematic and planned process to continuously generate, collect, analyse and assess the clinical data pertaining to a device in order to verify the safety and performance, including clinical benefits, of the device when used as intended by the manufacturer (EU MDR 2017/745). Continue

The characteristically folded surface morphology is a classical hallmark of the mammalian brain. During development, the initially smooth surface evolves into an elaborately convoluted pattern, which closely correlates with brain function and serves as a clinical indicator for physiological and pathological conditions. Continue

Pancreatic cancer is, worldwide, the 6th most frequent cause of cancer death. Of all cancers it has the most abysmal five-year survival rate. This is due to a lack of sufficiently early detection methods and the fact that, if detected, the cancer has already spread. Continue

In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association included internet gaming disorder (IGD) in the appendix of the fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-5) as a condition warranting further research. Continue