In the EU alone, approximately 30 million people are affected by a rare disease, many of them children. Most of the 6,000 to 8,000 rare diseases known to date are caused by the altered function of a single gene (Boycott&Ardigó, 2018). This project under the supervision of Prof. Christoph Klein aims to develop innovative strategies for precision medicine in rare diseases by (i) re-wiring aberrant molecular networks for therapeutic purposes and (ii) identifying novel “druggable” targets using CRISPR-Cas9-mediated genome-wide screens.

Anelloviruses are a diverse group of ubiquitous viruses infecting humans and vertebrates. Their contribution to disease development remains elusive. We hypothesize that during lifelong, persistent infection disbalances in the viral community can drive onset and progression of disease, e.g. cancer. We aim at a thorough description of the viral spectrum present in healthy and diseased tissue by high-throughput screening of sequencing data and subsequent identification of viral variants correlated with pathogenesis.

The detection of gravitational waves (GWs) has opened a new window on the universe, through which we can study the physics of black-hole and neutron-star mergers. By analyzing GWs we can infer properties of the corresponding astrophysical systems. Current analysis methods are however too computationally expensive to deal with the growing amount of data. My research is thus concerned with the development of more efficient methods for the GW analysis using powerful machine learning methods.

The central paradigm of quantum optics is the absorption and emission of radiation by quantum emitters. When the coupling between an emitter and its environment becomes strong, intriguing radiative properties can be engineered, such as directional emission patterns or strongly modified emission rates. This project aims at accessing such effects in a system of ultracold atoms in optical lattices where artificial emitters decay by emitting matter waves rather than optical radiation.

SARS-CoV‑2 has caused a pandemic and is responsible for more than 18 million infections. It is hypothesized that COVID-19 is the result of killing of infected cells and excessive immune activation. To reveal cell types and pathways that are critically involved in viral replication and pathogenesis, I will use transcriptomics and functional studies of genes likely involved in these processes. The results might inform the development of therapeutic strategies and the discovery of biomarkers.

Several goals were pursued in the development of this work, including the development of a novel in vivo method to measure the ciliary muscle of a human subject non-invasively during accommodation, the characterization of the recorded muscle signals based on the accommodative abilities of the subject, and the development of a device that would utilize the recorded muscle signals to mimic the appropriate level of accommodation for the user, actuated through the use of a variable refractive lens.

The risk to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) depends on the number of traumatic events experienced and individual risk factors, e.g. genetic predispositions. However, to identify causal genetic variants of this polygenic disease, trauma exposure needs to be adequately assessed.

Fossil resources are increasingly depleted. They have to be replaced as quickly as possible by renewable raw materials, so that a slow transition to a new and modern production of „platform chemicals“ can take place.

The market’s demand for carbon fiber/epoxy composite has dramatically increased due to its significant applications and advantages in industry. Typical loading on the structures that are made up by this material often involves tensile and lateral bending of the composite laminates.

The exact position of atoms in the crystal structure of lanthanum manganites and cobaltates (both anorganic ionic compounds) significantly affects their magnetic properties. The crystal structure of these materials can be altered by pressure, substitution of elements, or crystallite size: Since nanoparticles have a large surface-to-volume ratio, their surface has a dominant effect on the crystal structure, leading to changes compared to bulk materials.