Press Releases

Kiel professor honoured as a foreign associate for her outstanding research on the influence of fungi on health, nutrition and the environment. more

Vaccines for animals based on viruses that spread on their own are being developed in Europe and the U.S more

The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding the Clinician Scientist Program CSEM at CAU's Faculty of Medicine with another 700,000 euros. more

The bacterium Vibrio cholerae is the causative agent of the diarrheal disease cholera and is responsible for seven known pandemics. The seventh cholera pandemic began in 1961 and is still active. Unlike previous pandemics, it is caused by cholera strains of a slightly different type. How did the modified cholera strains develop and spread, and what might have contributed to their success? Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology Plön and CAU Kiel, in an international team with colleagues from City College New York and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, have now gained new insights into a molecular mechanism that provides insight into the interactions between cholera bacteria and may have played a role in the emergence of the seventh pandemic. more

„Transposable elements (TEs)" are small DNA segments found in nearly all genomes across the tree of life. Their function is not fully understood, but their properties are remarkable: they can integrate themselves into DNA and also replicate there on their own, independent of their host. Therefore, it is assumed that the proliferation of TEs has contributed decisively to the genome size of  eukaryotes. However, TEs are also found in prokaryotes, which have much smaller genomes. Moreover, their genomes are significantly streamlined, meaning a much smaller proportion is non-coding. What's behind this?
With the help of computer modeling, a team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology has now succeeded in shedding some light on the matter.
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Michael Raatz honored for his research on population ecology models and their transfer to cancer research. more

In complex organisms, two basic types of cells are found: on the one hand, reproductive cells, which are responsible only for the reproduction of the living being, and on the other hand, cells specialized for the vegetative functions of the body. This division of cells is irreversible, that is, the vegetative cell type produces only vegetative cells that are no longer involved in the process of reproduction. Why has this division of labor evolved, what are the advantages? This is what scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön are researching with the help of mathematical models. more