Press Releases Archive
02.02.2016
€15.7m for Werner Siemens Imaging Center
Siemens Foundation supports development of groundbreaking imaging technologies in Tübingen
The University of Tübingen’s Werner Siemens Imaging Center is to receive €15.7m in sponsorship over eight years from the Werner Siemens Foundation to futher develop its outstanding research in the field of preclinical imaging.
“The generous support of the Werner Siemens Foundation provides us with an excellent financial foundation from which we can give new impetus to preclinical and translational imaging,” says the Center’s director, Professor Bernd Pichler. “In the years to come, we aim to further integrate different imaging systems.” Imaging procedures are becoming increasingly important in diagnostics and treatment, as well as in basic research in biomedicine.
“The big issue in the coming years will be the linking of the quantative parameters of multi-modal imaging with high-throughput technologies such as genomic, proteomic and metabolic analyses,” Pichler adds. “The University of Tübingen aims to make a significant contribution to top-level international research, so as to characterize diseases even more precisely and to treat them in the context of the individual patient.” Pichler outlines the potential applications in diagnosing and treating a broad sweep of oncological and neurodegenerative diseases, such as breast cancer, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson's disease. The Werner Siemens Imaging Center plays an internationally pioneering role in diagnostics using imaging in the field of infectious diseases and in immunological questions and immunotherapy.
The Center employs 55 researchers into biological and medical questions in preclinical imaging. The Center works to further develop diagnostic technologies such as MRI scanning and PET - as well as combined systems - building a bridge between biomedical research and imaging science. Professor Pichler’s working group developed the world’s first preclinical combined PET-MRI system. Working in collaboration with Siemens, the group followed that with the first such clinical combined system, allowing better diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s. Successful basic research in the area is currently being translated into clinical studies. Close cooperation with the Max Planck Institutes located in Tübingen enables the researchers to use the latest machine learning techniques to process and mine the often very large, multiparametric data sets which result.
The Werner Siemens Foundation has sponsored Tübingen research in preclinical imaging and radiopharmacy several times since 2006, including €3.1m for an endowed professorship, €1.2m for a research training group, and €8m for infrastructure and a new building, which the Werner Siemens Imaging Center moved into in November 2014.
Werner Siemens Foundation
Werner von Siemens (1816–1892) was an inventor and entrepreneur who brought vision and impetus to the fledgling electroindustry in the second half of the ninteenth century. The Werner Siemens Foundation was established in 1923 by the daughters of Carl von Siemens, brother of Werner. The Foundation is based in Switzerland. It supports projects in the areas of education, training, and youth sponsorship; in the sciences, particularly in technology and the natural sciences; and in health and nature.
Contact:
Professor Bernd Pichler
University of Tübingen
Department of Radiology
Preclinical Imaging and Imaging Technology
Werner Siemens Imaging Center
Phone +49 7071 29-83427
<link>bernd.pichler[at]med.uni-tuebingen.de
Werner Siemens Imaging Center (WSIC): <link http: www.preclinicalimaging.org home.html>www.preclinicalimaging.org/Home.html
Werner Siemens Foundation: <link http: www.wernersiemens-stiftung.ch de home>www.wernersiemens-stiftung.ch/de/home/