In what will go down as an outstanding success for the University of Bonn’s Faculty of Medicine, Professor Frank G. Holz—Director of the Ophthalmology Clinic at the University Hospital Bonn and a professor at the University—has been shortlisted for the “Falling Walls Science Breakthrough of the Year 2026” in the Life Sciences category. His project thus ranks among the year’s top 30 scientific innovations in this category according to the prestigious Falling Walls Science Summit. Even making it onto the shortlist is a sign of significant international acclaim. The winners in the individual categories will be crowned at the Falling Walls Science Summit in Berlin from November 6 to 11.

B-cell depletion therapies, in which B cells of the immune system, which may drive disease activity in multiple sclerosis (MS), are temporarily removed, have contributed significantly to improved treatment for patients in recent years. Researchers from the University Hospital of Bonn (UKB), the Universities of Bonn, Basel, Toronto, and Yale, along with their collaborators, have uncovered a previously unknown mechanism through which B-cell depletion therapies contribute to a better disease course in patients with MS. Surprisingly, the treatment appears to exert part of its beneficial effect by mobilizing regulatory immune cells that naturally reside in the gut. This study has now been published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

A team from the University of Bonn and the Research Center Borstel, Leibniz Lung Center (FZB) has discovered a previously unknown mechanism of action for a synthetic peptide that mitigates excessive inflammatory responses in allergic asthma. This mechanism specifically inhibits a key inflammatory switch in the immune system and opens up new avenues for treating chronic inflammatory diseases. The findings have now been published in the journal Advanced Science.

Interferon alpha is an inflammatory mediator that can cause Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease. This is revealed in a recent study carried out by the University Hospital Bonn together with the University of Bonn, the University of Edinburgh and Newcastle University. Their findings, which have been published in the journal “Lancet Rheumatology,” could make it easier in the medium term to develop drugs to fight this chronic condition.

Three University of Bonn researchers have been awarded a Proof of Concept Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). Neuroscientist Professor Dominik Bach, chemist Assistant Professor Ala Bunescu and radiologist Professor Philipp Vollmuth (from the University Hospital Bonn) are each receiving €150,000 over a period of 18 months. This program helps researchers to take findings from their work and turn them into commercial products or services.

For the immune system to effectively combat pathogens, antibody responses must be precisely controlled. So-called follicular regulatory T cells (Tfr cells) play a key role in this process by limiting excessive immune responses and helping to maintain immune tolerance. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn have now developed a robust laboratory method that allows Tfr cells to be generated from precursor cells and studied in a targeted manner. The results were recently published in the journal Cellular & Molecular Immunology.

Every time we move through a familiar environment, the hippocampus consults an internal map, a detailed spatial representation that is built up through repeated experience. But what happens when something unexpected occurs on a well-known route? Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn were able to demonstrate in a mouse model that the brain does not redraw its maps from scratch. Instead, it annotates them: preserving the underlying spatial layout while overlaying new information on top of the existing map. Their findings have now been published in the journal PNAS.

The Code of Conduct serves as a fundamental guide for teaching, studying, and working at the Faculty of Medicine at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University of Bonn. It is intended to provide a sense of security in our interactions for faculty, students, and staff of diverse nationalities, backgrounds, and religious affiliations, and to foster a trusting atmosphere for learning, studying, and working.