Teaching philosophy
Our courses focus on you as students. Our aim is for you to not just learn biomedical content by heart, but to really understand it, apply it and be able to use it later in your career. We teach on the Bachelor's degree program DBHS(Biomedical Technologies I & II, Applied Biophysics) and on the Master's degree program Biomedical Technology(Molecular Biology and Biochemistry of Diseases I, Medicine in Depth - Mechanobiology and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology).
We attach great importance to an interdisciplinary education that prepares you to work at the interfaces between biology, medicine, technology and industry. To this end, we first teach you the necessary basics, but show you from the outset how these are applied in practice. You will not only learn about methods, but also why they are used, what their limitations are and how to recognize and correct typical errors.
Lectures are supplemented by seminars and practicals in which you will deepen your knowledge, work experimentally and develop your own solution strategies. There is a particular focus on transfer skills: You will practise transferring theoretical knowledge to new issues and communicating complex relationships in an understandable way. In this way, we want to prepare you as well as possible for your future career in research, industry or clinical areas.
Detailed information on the content of the courses can be found below.
Courses DBHS
The module consists of a lecture, seminar and practical laboratory course.
Lecture: Main topic cell culture techniques (properties of specialized cells and tissues, morphology, establishment of a primary culture, cell passaging, detachment, contamination, growth phases, growth curve, methods of cell counting), methods for the investigation of cell properties (viability tests, immunofluorescence, migration assays, tube formation, sprouting assay), adhesion, extracellular matrix, integrins, cell cycle, senescence, cell ageing, apoptosis, immortalization, transfection, cell lines, proliferation markers, cell differentiation, stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, tissue typing, hybridoma technique).
In each lecture, the basics of the respective topic are first briefly discussed, then in-depth insights into signaling cascades and pathophysiological changes in these signaling pathways are discussed and then it is shown how the methods for investigating the aspects addressed are carried out in the laboratory.
Seminar: In the seminar, you will put into practice the knowledge of cell culture techniques acquired in the lecture. First, you will receive information on various aspects of scientific writing and presentation on several seminar dates. You will then apply these by:
- Practicing writing a bachelor thesis on given raw data
- Creating a poster about a publication and presenting it in English at a "mini-congress".
Practical course: In the one-week practical course, you will put the methods presented in the lecture into practice in the laboratory. You will prepare a primary endothelial cell culture and characterize it using a growth curve, ELISA, immunofluorescence and confocal fluorescence microscopy. You will also investigate proliferation, migration and tube formation using appropriate assays.
Examination performance:
Lecture: written exam, 60 min
Seminar: term paper, 10 pages
Practical course: Practical examination
The module consists of a lecture, seminar and practical laboratory course.
Lecture: The lecture is divided into 3 thematic blocks.
1) Technology of recombinant peptides/proteins (medically relevant peptides and proteins and their areas of application, chemical and enzymatic conditioning, fermentation, protein folding, export, inclusion bodies, protein purification, membrane processes, biotransformation)
2) Enzyme technology (application of Michaelis-Menten kinetics, medically relevant enzymes and their catalysis mechanisms, immobilization processes, biosensors).
3) Bioprocess engineering: (bioreactors, immobilization of biocatalysts, microbial growth models, product formation, process control, material balancing, measurement, control and regulation technology, regulation of bioreactors).
Seminar: You will work independently in groups on the topics discussed in the lecture, thereby expanding and deepening your skills. Group work formats include problem-oriented learning (PoL) and the expert group/puzzle group format. In addition, current research is discussed with experts from the subject areas in meet-the-expert sessions.
Exercise:
1) They carry out simulations of a reaction in a bioreactor in a practical exercise.
2) They independently carry out a complete production, purification and detection of an enzyme and measure and analyze its enzyme kinetics.
Examination performance:
Lecture: written exam, 90 min
Practical course: practical examination
The compulsory elective module Applied Biophysics consists of a seminar and a practical laboratory course.
Seminar: You will first receive an introduction to methods from the field of biophysics and then work in groups to develop the application of these methods in biomedical research and discuss them in the group. They then present their results in two group presentations (PL). Examples of the methods covered are atomic force microscopy, microfluidics, thermophoresis techniques, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, multiphoton tomography, molecular dynamics simulations.
Practical course: You will carry out your own microfluidic and atomic force microscopy experiments on biophysical issues.
Examinations:
Seminar: 2 group presentations
Courses Master BMT
The module consists of a lecture, seminar, laboratory practical course and clinical practical course.
This lecture is organized as a lecture series.
Dates 1-5: Lecturer Prof. Maria Brehm with the topics infectious and malignant diseases.
Dates 6-9: Lecturer Dr. Muhammad Arshad (AG Brehm) with the topics cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
The module consists of a seminar and a laboratory course.
Seminar: Single appointment (4h) on the basics of cellular mechanobiology and the topics of the practical course.
Practicalcourse: The aim of this practical course is to gain insights into the influence of matrix stiffness on the behavior of tumor cells and their interaction with endothelial cells. Using experimental approaches, you will learn how mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix influence cellular functions such as attachment and interaction with the endothelium.
Based on published work, we cultivate H1299 cells (human non-small cell lung carcinoma cells) on Matrigel-functionalized polyacrylamide gels with different stiffness and investigate the influence of endothelial cells by analyzing, among other things, the attachment of tumor cells to a monolayer of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs).
Examination performance:
Oral examination
The module consists of a lecture, practical laboratory course and practical work experience.
Lecture: From gene to protein, formulation, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, immunogenicity, pharmaceutical antibodies, oligotherapies, tissue engineering, gene therapy, stem cell therapies.
Laboratory practical: production of a pharmaceutical protein and measurement of its activity under static and flow conditions.
Internship: Self-organized internship of at least 2 weeks in a biotech or pharmaceutical company.
Examinations:
Lecture: written exam, 90 min
Laboratory practical: practical examination