CHAIR OF MEDICAL

SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY

As part of this year's "World Intellectual Property Day", which was dedicated to women, German Patent and Trade Mark Office together with the Patent Information Centre Magdeburg, presented various women inventors, designers and trade mark owners.

 In this article Isabel Heidemann, a graduate in oecotrophology, Nora Beiermann and Sandy Reß, master hearing aid acousticians, and Laila Ghaoui, a graduate engineer and mathematician, report on their projects, all of which also have registered property rights.

Laila Gbaoui, a medical engineer at the OVGU, is researching the analysis and characterisation of psychiatric illnesses and mental stress. She is developing a new non-invasive diagnostic procedure for depression. Colleagues from our "Medical Systems" working group, led by Professor Christoph Hoeschen, are also involved in this in cooperation with the medical team of Professor Thomas Frodl, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at OVGU and Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics at RWTH Aachen University Hospital.

Currently, psychiatry lacks proper quantitative biomarkers that allow clear diagnosis of psychiatric disorders. In contrast to the conventional interview-based diagnostic procedure, the new method is based on the identification and quantification of huge data sets of chemical particles in the exhaled air. Furthermore, the current diagnostic procedure is inexpensive and particularly easy to apply to children and elderly as well as multimorbid patients. In recent years, the analysis of chemical particles in exhaled air has proven to be a promising method for the identification of biomarkers for the diagnosis and monitoring of various metabolic diseases, cancer, asthma and so on.

What is special about this research area is the bridging between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and psychiatry, which holds out the prospect of new horizons for computational (digitised) psychiatry. The analysis of chemical Big Data with the various algorithms of AI could help extract new quantitative biomarkers for the early detection, diagnosis, treatment, progression and prevention of recurrent psychiatric episodes. In this way, treatments could be determined, optimised and thus also personalised by AI. And this especially against the background that over 350 million people worldwide are affected by mental illnesses and the prevalence is increasing in Germany and worldwide.

more information: Gbaoui L, Hoeschen C., Fachet M., Lüno M, Meyer-Lotz G, Frodl T., Breathomics profiling of metabolic patways affected by major depression: possibilities and limitations. Frontiers in Psychiatry 2022, 13:1061326

 https://www.dpma.de/dpma/veroeffentlichungen/patentefrauen/womeninip/magdeburg/index.html (in german)

Prof. Dr. Christoph Hoeschen has been elected representative of Consortium of European Radiation Research Platforms. One of the aims of the consortium is to promote the integration and efficiency of European research and development in the field of radiation protection for the better protection of people (the public, patients and employees) and the environment. However, it is also committed to, among other things, maintaining and expanding European research capabilities, promoting scientific education and training and key research infrastructures in the field of radiation protection, as well as international cooperation.

We are pleased to inform you that project 22HLT04/h03-MetrINO-Metrology for innovative nanotherapeutics in which we participate as a partner has been selected for funding’s by EURAMET under the European Partnership on Metrology 2022 call.

MetrINo responds to the immediate metrological needs expressed by industry, regulatory agencies and policymakers to develop, and validate traceable measurement methods and reference materials for the assessment of the critical quality attributes of nanotherapeutics. The project focus on clinical formulations, including synthetic lipid-based and metal oxide nanoparticles used for localised cancer treatment, gene therapy, vaccines (COVID-19) or as contrast agents. Candidate reference materials will be developed and used for measurement control. MetrINo will develop and validate traceable methods to measure nanoparticle physical properties, biotransformation in biological media, and methods for their identification and quantification in cells and tissues.

The project is coordinated by the LNE, Laboratoire national de métrologie et d'essais. The international consortium involving 10 countries is composed by 10 national metrology institutes or designated institutes (LNE, BAM, PTB, RISE, SMD, TUBITAK, INRIM, LGC, NPL, NRC), the ETPN nanomedicine association; 3 research and technology organisations (SINTEF, EMPA, CEA), 3 academic partners (UPv, OVGU, UGent) 1 hospital (OGSA), 2 pharmaceutical industries (NanoPET, NanoBiotix) and 1 SME (Curadigm) that are key experts in the field of nanomedicine. MetrINo is further supported by more than 20 international stakeholders.