Helmholtz International Labs

Coordinating Helmholtz Center and, if applicable, other participating German partners: HZDR

International Partner: Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel)

Short project description: The aim of the WHELMI project is to create and promote synergies in high-power laser science. To achieve this, it works with an innovative research program that focuses on both basic research and application.

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Coordinating Helmholtz Center and, if applicable, other participating German partners: HMGU, FZJ

International Partner: Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel)

Short project description: More than 90 percent of the world's population lives in regions where the WHO guidelines for air pollution control are exceeded. The health consequences of this pollution have still not been fully researched. The aim of the project is to elucidate the impact of air pollutants on human health.

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Coordinating Helmholtz Center and, if applicable, other participating German partners: HZI

International Partner: Shandong University (China)

Short project description: The interdisciplinary research team is working on strategies to develop new drugs against resistant viral and bacterial pathogens. The aim of the project is to bring new active substances up to the proof-of-concept phase.

Coordinating Helmholtz Center and, if applicable, other participating German partners: DESY, European XFEL

International Partner: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford (USA)

Short project description: X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) have already led to completely new insights into atomic structures. The project aims to expand the experimental capabilities and reliability of the systems. In the future, they could collect huge data sets at high rates over long periods of time. The highly specialized facilities FLASH, European XFEL and LCLS II in Hamburg and California are involved in the experiments.

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Coordinating Helmholtz Center and, if applicable, other participating German partners: FZJ

International Partner: McGill University (Canada)

Short project description: Digital 3D atlases of the human brain are fundamental tools for understanding our thinking organ. But information about thin fiber bundles, cortical layers or microcircuits has not been integrated there so far. The project aims to create a microscopic 3D map of functional neuroanatomy at the cellular level. To this end, the research teams are using and developing innovative AI and high-performance computing (HPC) technologies.

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Coordinating Helmholtz Center and, if applicable, other participating German partners: IPP

International Partner: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Auburn University (USA)

Short project description: The aim of the HILOADS project is to create a climate and environmentally friendly power plant. The fuel is ionized hydrogen gas, a plasma. To ignite the fusion fire, it must be enclosed in magnetic fields with almost no contact and heated to over 100 million degrees. For their research, the scientists primarily use the powerful flagship stellarator Wendelstein 7-X at IPP in Greifswald.

Coordinating Helmholtz Center and, if applicable, other participating German partners: GEOMAR

International Partner: University of Haifa (School of Marine Sciences) (Israel)

Short project description: The project uses the eastern Mediterranean Sea from the coast to the deep sea as a natural laboratory:  The research teams can observe the biogeochemical and ecosystem processes in an ocean that is changing into a (sub-) tropical sea due to global warming and other human influences. The eastern Mediterranean can thus serve as an early warning and model system. The researchers are also using it to study how sensitive or resilient marine ecosystems react.

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Coordinating Helmholtz Center and, if applicable, other participating German partners: HMGU, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI Tübingen)

International Partner: Mila- Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute (MILA) (Canada)

Short project description: The German-Canadian project team observes the dynamics inside cells using "single cell multi-omics" and artificial intelligence methods. This combination enables profound insights into molecular mechanisms and also allows accurate predictions of cellular behavior, for example in the case of medication. Such predictions are otherwise only possible through lengthy experiments.

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Coordinating Helmholtz Center and, if applicable, other participating German partners: HZDR

International Partner: Monash University (Australia)

Short project description: The aim of the project is to establish a joint platform for therapeutic and diagnostic expertise in cancer research. This is intended to optimize the methods of individualized therapy in the future, increase the survival chances of patients and improve their quality of life. Both sites are developing next-generation biomedical imaging platforms for this purpose.

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