Research

At the FAU Awards, the university appointed Prof. Harald Haas as its new FAU ambassador. Born in Franconia, he holds the position of Van Eck Professor of Engineering at Cambridge University. In this interview, he talks about his connection to the region, his current research, and his goals for his new role as FAU ambassador.

Forschende der FAU und der Universität Rostock haben einen bahnbrechenden Effekt entdeckt, bei dem Elektronen bereits durch nur eine einzige Schwingung eines Laserpuls stark beschleunigt werden. Bisher war dieser Effekt nur bei langen Laserpulsen sichtbar. Diese Entdeckung könnte zur Entwicklung ultraschneller Optoelektronik beitragen.

AI models are capable of deducing the rules of human language without being provided with explicit information about grammar and word classes. Researchers at FAU have proven this in an experiment.

When babies are born prematurely, they often cannot breathe without assistance. To keep their lungs clear, mucus must be removed from the ventilation tube several times a day – a necessary but risky procedure. Researchers at FAU and Erlangen University Hospital are working on an intelligent system that protects babies' sensitive lungs.

Exactly 50 years ago, FAU took a step that continues to benefit it today: it was the first university in Germany to establish a chair dedicated explicitly to the recognition of patterns in data. This made it a pioneer in Germany in a discipline that can be considered the basis of the current AI boom.

In order to achieve the Paris targets, renewables must be expanded to one hundred percent by the 2030s, but increasing land use is leading to resistance among the population. How can the wishes of citizens be incorporated into the planning of energy systems? This question was addressed by a team from ETH Zurich, FAU and the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS).

Bacteria use surfaces to form complex heterogeneous communities known as biofilms. How these biofilms develop is the subject of a new international research project at FAU. The German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) are supporting the collaboration with around 750,000 euros over three years.

How does the wind change the distribution of snow on glaciers and what effects does this have on their melting behavior? Doctoral student Manuel Saigger from FAU is investigating these questions as part of the M³OCCA doctoral program. At the Institute of Geography, he is using AI to calculate how snow drifts influence glacier mass.

A current study could lead to completely new therapeutic approaches against diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis and cancer in the medium term. The results show that a mechanism called durotaxis plays a key role in the progression of both diseases. FAU was also involved in the work led by Harvard Medical School in the USA.

When killer cells of the immune system encounter signs of infection, some of them divide rapidly. However, this is by no means the case for every single killer cell. What criterion determines whether they multiply or not? Researchers from FAU, the University Hospital Erlangen and Helmholtz Munich have investigated this question.