Institute for Theoretical Biology

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====== News ======

24 May 2023 - Published online: Gap junctions desynchronize a neural circuit to stabilize insect flight - Hürkey S*, **Niemeyer N*, Schleimer J-H**, Ryglewski S, **Schreiber S#**, Duch C# (2023): Gap junctions desynchronize a neural circuit to stabilize insect flight. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06099-0 - *Equal contribution. #Shared corresponding authors - 

2023-02-12
X-Research Group - Digital twins for the treatment of hypertension
<https://livermetabolism.com/teaching/>
**M. König** receives funding of the Berlin University Alliance and the DFG 
for the X-Student Research Group: **Digital twins for the treatment of 
hypertension**
Understanding a drugs pharmacokinetics - how it is absorbed, 
distributed, metabolised and excreted by the body - and its 
pharmacodynamics - how it affects the body - is a key challenge in 
treating people. Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and 
diuretics are two classes of drugs used to treat high blood pressure. 
Both are among the most commonly prescribed drugs due to the high 
prevalence of hypertension in an ageing society.
In this X-student research group physiologically based pharmacokinetic 
models of the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide and the ACE inhibitor 
lisinopril will be developed. With the X-Student Research Groups 
<https://www.berlin-university-alliance.de/commitments/teaching-learning/sturop/research-groups/index.html>,
the Berlin University Alliance supports research teams consisting of 
young researchers and students. The goal is to involve students in 
current research projects of the alliance partners and to enable them to 
participate in (cutting-edge) research already during their studies.
Funded under the Excellence Strategy of the Federal Government and the 
Länder by the Berlin University Alliance 
<https://www.berlin-university-alliance.de/>.

2023-02-01
ATLAS - AI and Simulation for Tumor Liver ASsessment
<https://www.simtech.uni-stuttgart.de/press/SimTech-collaborates-across-disciplines-in-joint-ATLAS-project/>
*The BMBF is funding the joint project ATLAS in the **"Computational Life 
Sciences - AI Methods for Systems Medicine"** of **M. König.**
Liver cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related death. 
Diagnosis and treatment are time-critical and require highly 
patient-specific diagnostic and treatment pathways. Medical 
decision-making is based on a variety of interdependent factors related 
to different medical disciplines, past experience and clinical 
guidelines. Taking into account all decision factors in combination with 
the possible therapeutic approaches is a major challenge for physicians 
and often cannot be solved optimally even in an interdisciplinary tumor 
board. In this project, we are developing ATLAS, a decision support tool 
that will significantly assist clinicians in meeting this challenge. 
Based on AI methods, ATLAS processes all relevant patient data from 
databases, systems medicine and continuum biomechanical in silico 
prognosis models as well as individual patient data. The tool is being 
developed in a co-design approach by experts in surgical oncology, 
mathematical modeling and machine learning. The selected technologies 
will integrate automated understanding of a highly complex patient 
situation through simulation of liver functions with expert knowledge 
and ontology-driven learning with knowledge graphs from retrospective 
liver tumor cases. ATLAS will be based on a detailed historical data 
cohort of more than 6,000 patients with liver tumors and will be 
evaluated on case studies at the University Hospital of Jena. The 
integration of medical expert knowledge, mathematical modeling and 
artificial intelligence represents a highly original and promising 
approach for high-quality diagnosis and treatment of liver tumors, 
resulting in patient-specific improvement of prognosis. The scientific 
knowledge gained from these projects will provide opportunities for 
transfer to malignancies in other organs, such as the lung, kidney or 
brain. The development of tools and demonstrators will provide 
sustainable exploitation pathways for future commercial applications.
https://www.simtech.uni-stuttgart.de/press/SimTech-collaborates-across-disciplines-in-joint-ATLAS-project/

The 3-year research project **"Delineating and testing a microcircuit
model of parahippocampal phase precession"** is funded by the German
Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) within the
Priority Program 1665 (Schwerpunktprogramm) "Resolving and
manipulating neuronal networks in the mammalian brain – from
correlative to causal analysis". The project will start in November
2016.  Collaborators are **Prof. Michael Brecht** (Humboldt-Universität zu
Berlin), **Prof. Dietmar Schmitz** (Charité), and **Prof. Richard Kempter**
(Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin).
Further details can be found at
http://www.spp1665.de/projects_2_delineating.html

The 3-year research project **"Field potentials in the auditory system"**
is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research
(BMBF) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). This "US-American -
German Collaboration in Computational Neuroscience" started in April
2016. Collaborators are **Prof. Catherine E. Carr** (University of
Maryland), **Prof. Christine Köppl** (Universität Oldenburg), and
**Prof. Richard Kempter** (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin).
Further details can be found at
https://fis.hu-berlin.de/converis/publicweb/Project/14607?share=false&cntpers=false&reqstfulltxt=false&reports=false&lang=1

**Prof Werner Ebeling** Honorary Colloquium **"Irreversible Processes and 
Selforganization"**  on occasion of his 80th birthday taking place at 
21st of October, 2016 at 2pm in the Institute of Theoretical Biology,
house 04 of “Campus Nord” of Humboldt University at Berlin