Creat­ing the Future
Projects

High-through­put Virus Discov­ery in Next Gener­a­tion Sequenc­ing Data

Franziska Klingler – Hector Fellow Ralf Bartenschlager

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.

© Franziska Klingler

Quantum infor­ma­tion process­ing with scalable semicon­duc­tor spin-qubit chips

Dominic Barthlott - Hector Fellow Wolfgang Wernsdorfer

Quantum computing has the potential to provide speedups for classical problems such as complex simulation, optimization and cryptography tasks, but requires scalable and reliable qubit technologies. Semiconductor spin qubits combine long coherence times with established industrial fabrication techniques. This project focusses on implementing high-fidelity two-qubit gates, which are then expanded to multi-qubit arrays and quantified by applying quantum information algorithms together with rigorous benchmarking.

© Koch, T., Godfrin, C., Adam, V. et al.

Beyond the Cortex: Subcor­ti­cal Connec­tiv­ity in Social Cognition

Lorenz Ahle - Hector RCD Awardee Sofie Valk

This project explores how subcortical structures such as the amygdala, thalamus, basal ganglia, cerebellum and hippocampus shape social cognition. Using high-resolution fMRI, diffusion MRI and computational modeling it examines how connections between subcortex and cortex support empathy, perspective taking and emotional regulation.

© Sofie Valk

Neural mecha­nisms of visual percep­tual learn­ing in children and adults

Dominik Aschenbrenner - Hector RCD Awardee Sebastian Frank

Visual perceptual learning (VPL) – a type of visual skill learning – has often been studied in adults as a model system to identify neural mechanisms of learning. However, it is unclear whether children employ similar neural mechanisms for VPL as adults. In this project, we will use non-invasive brain imaging to measure and compare neural mechanisms of VPL in children and adults and examine whether and if so how learning changes from childhood to adulthood.

© Dominik Aschenbrenner

Synthe­sis and Charac­ter­i­za­tion of biofunc­tion­al­ized organ­otin chalco­genide clusters

Martina Kämpfe - Hector Fellow Stefanie Dehnen

The cytotoxicity of organic tin compounds makes them interesting for cancer chemotherapy. Organotin chalcogenide clusters release under acidic decomposition not only an organic tin compound but also an even more toxic hydrogen chalcogenide. To enable biocompatibility of those clusters, they must be derivatized with biomolecules. This project aims to synthesize biofunctionalized organotin chalcogenide clusters and to investigate their decomposition behavior.

© Martina Kämpfe