The Week at TU Braunschweig │26.06.2020 Our Newsletter for all Employees

Topics: Hybrid semester + immune system + micro LEDs + zebrafish + ticks + parking garage

Editor: Viktoria Heyer

► Hybrid semester

Why are the hygiene requirements for drawing rooms, laboratories and central facilities and for all classroom formats so strict? Because our campus, it has to be clearly stated, is a potential hot spot for the spread of infections. We live from permanent exchange and cannot be compared to companies or schools. Our almost 20,000 students, just as an example, alternate under normal conditions in one day between large lectures, seminar rooms, workstations and the library and between different buildings. The crisis team has now updated the questions and answers on Corona. In the preamble we have written down which guidelines we follow in our infection prevention measures. As the virus will continue to accompany us for a long time after the summer holidays, the winter semester must become a hybrid semester (en): As much digital teaching as necessary, as much presence as possible. And even if digital teaching works out very well thanks to the huge commitment of teachers, students and service teams, we all eagerly wish for a direct exchange back. Let us together contribute to making it possible again soon.

► Overreaction of the immune system

Neurobiologist Professor Martin Korte and his team were able to show in a study with mice that sepsis can have long-term effects on the brain and learning behaviour even after recovery. Inhibition of the protein complex NLRP3 could prevent these negative effects. The German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the University of Bonn were also involved in the study.

► Understanding the world with micro-LEDs

Have you ever mapped a bacterium with a smartphone? The research focus Metrology has the vision to make precise measurement and microscopy available everywhere and for everyone. The EU research project SMILE, in which the Institute of Semiconductor Technology is also involved, uses tiny LEDs to develop microscopes that trick the diffraction limit of light. The chips with the micro-LEDs and the technology behind them are developed to market launch and then transferred to industry.

► Safe power grids for the energy turnaround

In the future, more and more renewable energies will cover the increasing energy demand. In the lead project SiNED, members of the Energy Research Center of Lower Saxony (EFZN) are researching an energy network of the future. Together, they are developing an electricity grid that is not only stable and efficient, but also digitalized, profitable and legally (data protection) secure.

► Parking garage for zebrafish larvae

How do zebrafish actually think? In order to be able to watch the brain of zebrafish at work, Dr. Kai Mattern and Professor Andreas Dietzel from the Institute of Microtechnology, together with Dr. Jakob von Trotha and Professor Reinhard Köster from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology, developed a tiny parking garage for zebrafish larvae, which they combined with high-resolution microscopy. Their paper has now been published in a scientific journal.

► Insights into the world of micro LEDs

Professor Andreas Waag from the Institute for Semiconductor Technology offers an insight into the world of micro LEDs in an interview with our editorial staff. He explains the diversity of LED technology and the plans for the EU project SMILE. This key technology of the TU research focus Metrology can help to perceive our environment in the smallest detail and to illuminate things that would otherwise remain unseen.

► Architectural drawing rooms open

The hygiene concept of the Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences has been approved by the crisis management team. 140 of the 360 workplaces can be used while maintaining the safety distances. Under certain conditions, students of architecture can stay in the drawing rooms to complete their final theses.

► The big crawl

“The common wood tick is a ‘lazy sod’, so to speak,” says Dr. Dania Richter from the Institute of Geoecology. We accompanied the biologist and parasitologist in her search for ticks during the landscape epidemiology field exercise with students and learned more about the life of the parasites. And now we know what it looks like when you look into the mouth of a tick under the microscope.

► Driverless parking

Relaxed parking and let the car do the work on its own? The NFF is researching this in the project SynCoPark. “Besser Smart – Das Innovationsportal” of the city of Braunschweig presents the project in a video clip and shows in the research car park what is already possible. Dr. Adrian Sonka and Marcel Kascha from the Institute of Automotive Engineering explain the technical background and the challenges that automated parking involves.

► Darling of the week

Thanks to our favourite of the week that the third Open Student Concert can also take place in pandemic times. The team of the Open Student Concert, supported by the Sandbox, the AGS of the TU Braunschweig and many other hands, recorded the concert in the Botanical Garden without audience and published it yesterday on the YouTube channel of the Sandbox Platform. There you can watch the video now. So we will get some popcorn for the weekend and send a big thank you to everyone involved.