Lighthouse Project BioDevCenter

With the Biological Development Center, the NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute in Reutlingen, together with the Werner Siemens Imaging Center (WSIC) at the Faculty of Medicine and the University Hospital of Tübingen, is creating the basis for the rapid and efficient implementation of biotechnologically produced proteins, so-called biologicals, in the diagnostic and therapeutic market. Biologicals have great potential, particularly for personalized medicine, to make treatments more specific and therefore more successful. For the development pipeline of science and industry - especially for SMEs and start-ups in the biotech sector - the Biologicals Development Center offers uncomplicated access to research opportunities. On site, in close cooperation with academic groups and companies, interdisciplinary teams can conduct research into the design, production, functionalization and testing of biologicals, thereby accelerating the transfer to application.

Biologicals are also becoming increasingly important in the field of medical devices, for example for coating implants, improving wound healing or the absorption of drugs. The first biologicals are already being generated at the NMI and will be available for imaging experiments at the WSIC from the middle of next year. The WSIC and the NMI are currently developing methods for labeling biologicals with short-lived tracers, such as the radioactive isotope fluorine-18, which has a half-life of just under two hours.

Such tracers, which can be produced on site at the WSIC, offer for the first time the possibility of diagnostically accompanying expensive immunotherapies. These therapies are increasingly being used in the fight against cancer, for example. With the tracers, they can be controlled and adapted to the individual patient.