SPIN2030 Science Festival © SPIN2030

SPIN2030 Science Festival in Dresden

On March 8 (noon to 10:00 pm) and March 9 (10:00 am to 6:00 pm), the Technische Sammlungen Dresden will be transformed into a science wonderland with highlights from the Saxon research landscape. TU Dresden will also be taking part in the SPIN2030 Science Festival organized by the Saxon State Ministry of Science, Culture and Tourism (SMWK). TUD will be represented with contributions from its Clusters of Excellence Center for Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop (CeTI), Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter (ct.qmat) and Physics of Life (PoL) as well as the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

© Crispin-Iven Mokry

Season of Excellence - Dresden Summer Schools 2024

Dresden hosts many summer schools every year. To increase their visibility, we have pooled them on a central overview page. In 2023, 44 summer schools in Dresden were showcased together on this site. In 2024, the ‘Season of Excellence - Dresden Summer Schools’ initiative is moving on to the next stage, starting with a call to submit details on the schools. Criteria for inclusion: The summer school must take place in Dresden in 2024 with TUD and/or another DRESDEN-concept partner institution, and should be open for international participants where possible.

© PantherMedia/everythingposs

Grant Writing Boot Camp 2024

The Postdoc Center Grant Writing Boot Camp takes place from May 27 to 30 in Marienstern Abbey and is intended for postdocs, junior professors and TUD Young Investigators who want to work specifically on their text strategy and the competitiveness of their grant applications. The deadline for entries is April 10.

© AdobeStock_ Anton

Workshops for Doctoral Candidates and Postdocs

Researching, writing, presenting, applying for grants, working in interdisciplinary teams: Young researchers face diverse and challenging requirements. The Graduate Academy (GA) also offers a comprehensive skills development program in the summer semester tailored for the needs of doctoral candidates and postdocs. Topics include leadership and management skills, career planning, scientific management, methods and communication. The courses are open for registration now.

from the left: Prof. Katrin Salchert, Prof. Ursula Staudinger, Prof. Silke Geithner © Women@DDc-Network

Interview with Dresden’s Women Rectors

Once again this year, the Women@DDc Network is organizing many interesting events and workshops for women in the Dresden science region. They include the ‘Interview with Dresden’s Women Rectors‘ event featuring Prof. Ursula Staudinger (TU Dresden), Prof. Silke Geithner (EHS Dresden) and Prof. Katrin Salchert (HTW Dresden) from 5 pm to 7 pm on April 8 in the IFW Dresden Lecture Hall. Afterwards, we invite you to network and join us for drinks and snacks. The event is free of charge. Please register by email to women-at-ddc@barkhauseninstitut.org or on LinkedIn no later than March 22.

© David Tett

transCampus Projects 2024

The nine new transCampus Projects for 2024 will further strengthen metabolic diseases and cancer research as medical research profiles with four relevant projects at the Faculty of Medicine and one interdisciplinary project to enhance cancer diagnosis with photoacoustic imaging. At the same time, the funding program supports new projects by giving researchers an opportunity to network in the fields of quantum networking and information technology, robots with senses of smell and taste, as well as micromobility.

Ludivine Gragy © Adrien Didierjean

Ludivine Gragy is the New Eleonore Trefftz Professor

As Visiting Professor under the Eleonore Trefftz Program, landscape architect Ludivine Gragy will research at TUD from March 1, 2024 to February 28, 2025, focusing on aspects of landscape architecture in the age of climate change. Her research interests are climate adaptation strategies, environmentally-friendly maintenance, working on existing architecture and cohabitation. In addition, she will work with fellow architects and students to produce designs for buildings, green façades for these buildings and their maintenance as part of the National Garden Show, which will take place in Dresden in 2033.

© Peter Himsel/Stifterverband

Successful Completion of the Stifterverband ‘Shaping Diversity’ Audit

On March 6, TU Dresden received the certificate for its participation in the ‘Shaping Diversity’ audit. The audit helped mainstream diversity throughout the university structures and incorporate new stakeholders in the organizational processes. This raised awareness for the topic of diversity. An overview of the entire audit process as well as information on and impressions of the individual workshops can be found on the website.

© Andreas Hartmann

2^nd Faculty-wide PhD Event at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences

Over 50 doctoral candidates and academic supervisors attended the 2^nd faculty-wide PhD event of the Faculty of Environmental Sciences and the emerging field of water research on February 6 in Tharandt. They networked, presented their research in short ‘lightning’ poster talks and a poster session, and discussed the use of AI tools in academic research.

© CeTI & Avanga (camera)

CeTI's Elevator Pitch | TP2 Sensors & Actuators

Welcome to the Elevator Pitch of the Cluster of Excellence Centre for Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop (CeTI), an immersive project designed to demystify the world of the tactile internet. CeTI’s central vision is to enable humans to interact in quasi real-time with cyber-physical systems (CPS) in the real or virtual world over intelligent wide-area communication networks. In this second Elevator Pitch, you will meet PhD researcher Pablo Alvarez Romeo and embark on a journey to unlock the secrets of exploring virtual worlds full of surprising environments and objects, ranging from the echo of ancient places to the manifestation of seemingly impossible realms. Pablo is spearheading the development of a cutting-edge tactile glove, a revolutionary gateway into a new era of human-machine interaction.

© Crispen Iven-Mockry

Mother-Daughter Robotics Workshop

On 11 February, the RoboLab of the Cluster of Excellence CeTI hosted young girls, aged between 8 and 14, accompanied by their mothers, for the Mother-Daughter Robotics Workshop. This collaborative initiative between CeTI, TU Dresden and HTW Dresden, as part of the Women@DDc network, organised on the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, left an indelible mark on the participants, inspiring a new generation of female innovators.

© Jonas Erhardt/Christoph Mäder

Umbrella for Atoms: The First Protective Layer for 2D Quantum Materials

As silicon-based computer chips approach their physical limitations in the quest for faster and smaller designs, the search for alternative materials that remain functional at atomic scales is one of science's biggest challenges. In a groundbreaking development, researchers at the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter (ct.qmat) have engineered a protective film that shields quantum semiconductor layers just one atom thick from environmental influences without compromising their revolutionary quantum properties. This puts the application of these delicate atomic layers in ultrathin electronic components within realistic reach. The findings have just been published in Nature Communications.

Schematic representation of superconducting so-called "Fermi Arcs" and "Weyl cones" in the material platinum-bismuth-2. © IFW Dresden

A superconducting sandwich offers hope for Majorana qubits

Researchers of the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat have discovered a material whose top and bottom surfaces superconduct, while the middle behaves like a metal. This is the first time superconductivity has been found in electrons trapped on the surface in so-called ‘Fermi arcs’. This surprising discovery may offer a new route to creating fault-tolerant qubits for quantum computers. Published in the journal Nature.

© Philipp Stollenmayer/ct.qmat

Kitty Q Celebrates: Quantum Physics Game App Exceeds 500,000 Downloads

The cute, half-dead cat Kitty Q is proving to be a global sensation, boasting over 500,000 downloads. The game app Kitty Q – A Quantum Adventure, starring the charming feline, demonstrates the appeal of quantum physics to children and teenagers. The gamification initiative is set to continue in 2024 with the launch of Germany’s first-ever quantum physics escape room for kids.

Elisabeth Fischer-Friedrich © BIOTEC, Benjamin Friedrich © cfaed/Katharina Knaut

PoL | Two New Publications

Elisabeth Fischer-Friedrich and Benjamin Friedrich, two Heisenberg Professors of the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life (PoL), have published in the new interdisciplinary journal PRX Life, each highlighting distinct roles of the actin cytoskeleton. Their work reveals the actomyosin network as a central player in shaping functional biological structures. They show how mechanical forces contribute to basal tension in tissue morphogenesis at the tissue level and self-assembly of sarcomeres in muscle cells at the cellular level, respectively. Thus, both studies give novel insight into the emergence of biological form and its regulation by mechanical forces, with implications in the fields of developmental biology, and tissue engineering.

2023 TUD iGEM Team from the left: Tobias Fietze, Lanny Seraphim Thomas, Anne-Katrin Wilbrink, Johannes Radde, Mona Sabha, Caroline Breitenberger, Matthias Frank (not in the picture: Aleksandra Kievets) © TUD iGEM Team

TUD Team Places in Top 10 at the World’s Largest Synthetic Biology Competition

A team of TUD students placed in the top ten at the 2023 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition with their innovative method to remove water micropollutants named "Diatom-based Remediation using Immobilized Proteins" (DRIP). The project also earned them a gold medal and received nominations for Best Bioremediation Project, Best Presentation, and Best Education.

An artistic representation of the results: the broken DNA ends are kept together by the glue-like clump of PARP1 protein. © TUD/Magdalena Gonciarz (generated with Dall-E3)

Making Ends Meet: Researchers Find That a Protein Superglue is Crucial for DNA Damage Repair

Researchers from the Biotechnology Center (BIOTEC) of TUD, have uncovered how damaged DNA is repaired. When DNA breaks in two, it forms double-strand breaks, which can lead to cell death. The protein PARP1 acts like an underwater superglue, keeping the broken ends together. It creates a special healing zone that holds the loose DNA ends together and lets the DNA repair begin. The discovery unveils a key step in DNA damage repair, offering valuable insight for cancer treatment. The results are published in the journal Cell.

© Joshua Grant

Part 1: How does the human brain make decisions?

BiC – Behaviour in Context: Brain and Machine Computations of Behaviour in Complex and Uncertain Environments
Spokesperson: Prof. Stefan Kiebel