Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

Aquaculture is a growing market around the world. From animal feed production and food manufacturing to pharmaceuticals and medicine, a wide range of industries are profiting from the insights provided by fundamental and applied research into aquaculture — considered a key research and development field for providing food security to a growing global population. As of January 1, 2022, the research team at the German Society for Marine Aquaculture (Gesellschaft für Marine Aquakultur mbH, GMA) has joined the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Individualized and Cell-Based Medical Engineering IMTE in Lübeck to further consolidate the institution’s expertise in this area. This provides the research institution with a second site. It also bundles expertise in the research sector, which will strengthen the maritime economy in northern Germany and promote the development of innovative technologies to improve the ecological and economic balance sheet of aquaculture.

Since January 2022, Fraunhofer Fab Battery Cells FFB has been an independent research institution under the umbrella of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Fraunhofer FFB was originally established in Münster as an institute branch of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT as part of the FoFeBat project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Fraunhofer FFB aims to accelerate the innovation and commercialization processes of production technologies for existing and future cell formats and thus enable the more efficient, cost-effective production of premium-quality battery technologies. This will prevent international dependencies on other energy storage technology markets over the long term. Prof. Jens Tübke has been appointed acting head of the independent Fraunhofer Research Institution for Battery Cell Production FFB.

The venom of a single spider can contain up to 3000 components. These components, mostly peptides, can be used to develop promising drug leads for the treatment of diseases. Spider venom can also be used as a biological pesticide. A team of scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME and the Justus Liebig University in Giessen is primarily researching the venoms of spiders native to Germany, which have mostly been neglected until now. Their results regarding the biology of the toxins, in particular from the venom of the wasp spider, have been published in the journals “Biomolecules” and “Biological Reviews”.

Geothermal systems are becoming an increasingly important source of clean and, above all, baseload-capable energy. But the wells, which can be several thousand meters deep, are risky, and things can sometimes go wrong. Fraunhofer scientists have now developed an innovative tool that enables additional branches to be drilled off of the main well. This decreases the risk of dry boreholes and improves the output.