News

Three million measurement points in one square kilometer: Prof. Xiaoxiang Zhu and her team have set a world record in information retrieval from satellite data. Thanks to new algorithms, the researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) succeeded in making four-dimensional point clouds of Berlin, Las Vegas, Paris and Washington, D.C. from images stacks of the TerraSAR-X radar satellite. Next the scientists plan to create four-dimensional models of all cities in the world.

Every year, the World Economic Forum (WEF) publishes a list of 30 promising young tech companies. In 2017, this group of technology pioneers included a start-up founded by three students from the Technical University of Munich (TUM): KONUX develops sensors and analytics software which help companies monitor their infrastructure in real time. The rail industry is one of a number of sectors in which this system is proving useful.

Every human being has a unique DNA "fingerprint". In other words, the genetic material of any two individuals can be clearly distinguished. Computational biologists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now determined that the impact of these variations has been greatly underestimated. The new insights could importantly impact advances in personalized medicine.

Hire acquaintances or a grueling recruiting campaign: How do start-ups find their first employees? What makes them attractive when they can't offer much in terms of pay? Does a start-up boss have to hold an impassioned speech at least once every week? An interview with Jakob Bitner, who built the company VoltStorage as a student, and entrepreneurship researcher Prof. Nicola Breugst, occasioned by the IKOM career fair set to take place from June 19 to 22 at the Campus Garching.

Diagnosing malaria has been a very time-consuming and error-prone process up to now. Together with his Dutch colleague Jan van den Boogaart, Professor Oliver Hayden from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now developed an automated rapid blood test that provides an accurate diagnosis in almost 100 percent of cases. The researchers were presented with the European Inventor Award, which honors outstanding inventors from Europe and the rest of the world, for the development of the new method on 15 June.

In about half of all patients with rare hereditary disorders, it is still unclear what exact position of the genome is responsible for their condition. One reason for this is the enormous quantity of information encoded in human genes. Scientists from the fields of informatics and medicine have now joined forces to find a solution: A team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Helmholtz Zentrum München has developed a method that significantly increases the chances of a successful search. The new approach looks not only at DNA, but also at RNA.

What promotes the development of bile duct cancer in the liver? Are these factors different from those that are responsible for the much more common hepatocellular carcinomas? Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have been the first to uncover the molecular and cellular causes that selectively lead to the development of bile duct cancer in mice. The researchers also discovered that antioxidants or an inhibitor of a specific key enzyme can be used to stop this cancer-promoting process.

More traffic, heavier loads: When bridges in Germany over the age of 50 are evaluated according to current standards, calculations show that many of them theoretically have substantial deficiencies. Nevertheless many bridges exhibit no damage that confirms the calculated structural shortfalls. Engineers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are now working to explain this contradiction, conducting experiments on the transverse load bearing capacities of a real pre-stressed concrete bridge.

At the third Kunstareal-Fest on June 24 - 25, the Technical University of Munich (TUM) will showcase architectonic highlights of its buildings not otherwise immediately visible to the public, and will send the robot Nao to the Pinakothek der Moderne. There will also be a woodworking shop for children and young adults, while the Architecture Museum of TUM will open its doors for the current exhibition on landscape architecture.

For the third time in a row, the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has topped the German table in the “QS World University Ranking”. The list is seen as one of the world’s most prestigious university ranking systems. TUM places among the top 25 in the world for both natural sciences and engineering.