News

The roots of plants can do a lot of things: They grow in length to reach water, they can bend to circumvent stones, and they form fine root hairs enabling them to absorb more nutrients from the soil. A team of researchers led by scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now identified an important regulator of this process.

The aim of immunotherapies is to enable the immune system once again to fight cancer on its own. Drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors are already in clinical use for this purpose. However, they are only effective in about one third of patients. Based on analysis of human tissue samples, a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now discovered one reason why this is so: an inactive receptor in cancer cells prevents the drugs from reactivating the immune system.

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) continues to attract talented young people. Approximately 13,800 new students have enrolled in about 170 degree programs offered in Munich, Garching, Freising, Straubing and Heilbronn. As a result, the total student body at TUM is up to a total of 42,000, with a record share of 32 percent from abroad.

Sensitive synthetic skin enables robots to sense their own bodies and surroundings – a crucial capability if they are to be in close contact with people. Inspired by human skin, a team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed a system combining artificial skin with control algorithms and used it to create the first autonomous humanoid robot with full-body artificial skin.

With its agenda TUM.Additive, the Technical University of Munich (TUM) is kicking off a comprehensive research focus on additive manufacturing. Together with high-tech partners in industry, TUM has founded the "Bavarian Additive Manufacturing Cluster" with the aim of establishing Bavaria as the prominent economic region for digital manufacturing technologies. TUM is now implementing the first milestone of its future strategy “TUM Agenda 2030”.

In attendance of Minister of State Dorothee Bär, Federal Government Commissioner for Digital Affairs, the Technical University of Munich (TUM) officially opened the TUM Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence today. At the event the new institute's first research projects at the interface of ethics and artificial intelligence (AI) were presented – in areas ranging from AI in autonomous vehicles to regulatory issues.

Each year, US space agency NASA asks startups with ideas that could improve space exploration to apply for their iTech initiative. Among the ten finalists in the current competition (October 7 and 8) is MyelinS. This startup at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) began developing software for intelligent prostheses and ended up inventing new ways for astronauts and robots to interact in outer space.

Antibiotics are still the most important weapon for combatting bacterial infections. But medical science is running out of “ammunition” because of more and more frequently occurring resistances. A research team has now elucidated the structure of the proteolytic complex ClpX-ClpP. This is a key to development of innovative antibiotics which target the degradation process of defective proteins in bacteria.

Anja Karliczek, the German Federal Minister for Education and Research visited UnternehmerTUM, the Center for Innovation and Business Creation at TUM. The minister met entrepreneurs launching start-ups in the artificial intelligence and robotics sectors. Every year more than 70 technology companies are established at TUM.

One of the worst symptoms associated with inflammation or cancer of the pancreas is severe chronic pain. Pancreatic pain is difficult to treat, because many painkillers prove ineffective in pancreatic patients. In a recent study, a team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) discovered the cause of this phenomenon for the first time: a particular neuroenzyme in the body is present in the nerves of the organ in high concentrations.