Research news

States and international institutions face the dual challenge of ensuring stability while also enabling change. Dr. Anne Dienelt researches how law can be used as a tool to achieve this, and where its limits lie. On 25 June, she will take up the Chair of Public Law and International Law, with a particular focus on sustainability and resilience research. On 22 June, Minister of Finance and Science appointed her professor of law at Saarland University. [...]

A specialized truck equipped with a complete A&E unit – including an ultrasound, a CT and X-rays – enables ill residents to undergo medical examinations right outside their care home without having to travel long distances. The Saarland pilot project will be presented from 23 to 25 June at the Haupstadtkongress on Medicine and Health in Berlin (Messe, hub27). Beginning in September 2026, the truck equipped with high-tech diagnostics will begin serving patients in Saarland. [...]

The earlier a child masters the national language, the better their chances of succeeding in school. In May 2026, a new app, WUSCHEL, was launched in Saarland as part of the 'Startklar Deutsch' project. The app aims to help assess four-year-olds' language skills and provide individual support for learning German where needed – whether they are acquiring German as their first or their second language. [...]

How do molecules move? What do the interactions within cells look like in real time? How does this activity on a microscopic scale influence the bigger picture – and thus our health? Dr. Fabian Erdel's research aims to tackle these questions. The multi-award-winning molecular and cell biologist is moving from the Centre de Biologie Intégrative in Toulouse, France, to Saarland University. [...]

Materials science meets climate protection – innovative membrane adsorbers will be used in the future to efficiently and cost-effectively recover CO₂ from air and exhaust gases. In the SAFE-CO₂ project, Saarland University and several research institutes – coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB – are pooling their expertise to develop suitable membrane modules for industrial purposes.
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Why do cancer therapies have different success rates in men and women? How do immune cells tailor their attacks on tumours? Dr. Hsin-Fang Chang from the Center for Integrative Physiology and Molecular Medicine (CIPMM) and the Center for Gender-specific Biology and Medicine (CGBM) at Saarland University has been awarded more than €330,000 in research funding from the prestigious Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation (EKFS) to investigate these very questions. [...]

The internationally renowned structural biologist Nicholas Taylor is joining Saarland University as an Alexander von Humboldt Professor bringing with him award funding of €9.9 million. Saarland University was successful with its nomination for Germany's most highly endowed research award. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation announced the eight award winners today (10 June).  [...]

Whether rancid nuts in chocolate or unnoticed mould, quality defects in products pose an enormous risk for food manufacturers, ranging from costly recalls to reputation damage. Existing testing methods are often slow and expensive. At the SME Innovation Day organised by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy on 11 June in Berlin, the SENT-GC-MOS research project presented portable gas chromatography detectors that test food for spoilage in a matter of seconds and at low cost. [...]

How do software developers respond when they come across code they do not intuitively understand? Neuropsychologists have now explored this question by recording brain activity alongside eye movements. A team of psycholinguists then compared the findings with established patterns from natural language processing and identified some surprising parallels. The interdisciplinary team from Saarland University and Chemnitz University of Technology has now published its study in Scientific Reports. [...]

How are digital tools such as ChatGPT changing the study and teaching of history? How can students and lecturers take advantage of these new technologies – and how can they avoid the pitfalls? From 10 to 12 June, experts in history and educational science will explore these questions together with students. [...]