News

At the start of the summer semester, FAU wishes our new students a warm welcome and a successful start to their studies and welcomes back our returning students.

The University Council has elected a new member to the Executive Board: Prof. Dr. Georg Schett will become Vice President Research on 1 April and succeed Prof. Dr. Günter Leugering, who is retiring. The previous board members Prof. Dr. Friedrich Paulsen, Prof. Dr. Bärbel Kopp,and Prof. Dr. Kathrin M. Möslein, were all re-elected via postal vote.

Fighting cancer without damaging healthy cells is the aim of the search for new treatments for cancer. An international team of researchers at FAU has now developed prodrugs that inhibit the growth of cancer cells and do not affect healthy cells.

An international team of researchers has now demonstrated for the first time that high-energy cosmic rays are formed in the area surrounding massive stars. Their observations provide new insights into how cosmic rays are formed and develop. The results of this research, in which an astrophysicist from FAU was involved, have now been published in the renowned journal Nature Astronomy.

An international research project is to investigate new approaches to preventing undernutrition in the elderly. Nutritionist Prof. Dr. Dorothee Volkert will coordinate the multidisciplinary consortium of eight institutions from six European countries.

Academic freedom is a universal right and fundamental for high-quality higher education, innovation and social progress. However, nearly 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where academic freedom is subject to restrictions. Germany is in a very good position compared to the rest of the world. This is the conclusion reached by the Academic Freedom Index 2020.

The DFG has awarded young researcher Dr. Silvia Budday from the Chair of Applied Mechanics at FAU the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize – the most prestigious research award for early career researchers in Germany.

Rare earth elements are the gold of the 21st century: rare and highly prized all over the world. Geologists and materials scientists at FAU have now found a new way of finding new and previously unknown deposits of rare earths or rare earth metals worldwide.