Press Releases

A memorial in honor of Prof. Bernd Fischer, founder of Fraunhofer MEVIS Project Group Image Registration and director of the Institute of Mathematics and Image Computing will be held at the Universität zu Lübeck.

Nils Papenberg, research scientist at Fraunhofer Institute for Medical Image Computing MEVIS, is receiving one of the most prestigious awards in the field of machine vision. The 36-year-old is accepting the Koenderink award with three colleagues in Zurich on September 8th. It is being given at the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), one of the most important conferences in the field.

As part of the ‘Science Year 2014 – The Digital Society,’ the German Informatics Society (GI) has selected 39 men and women who represent a new generation of digital thinkers and doers. These ‘digital brains’ from business, science, and culture show the demands of the future and the digital excellence that Germany has in store. One of these creative brains is Dr. Horst Hahn, professor at Jacobs University Bremen and one of two directors of the Fraunhofer Institute for Medical Image Computing MEVIS in Bremen.

June marks the beginning of the National Cohort (NAKO), a long-term study of 200,000 subjects, the broadest of its kind in Germany to date. Gathering MRI data of up to 30,000 subjects is central to the study. These images help scientists gain valuable insight into the formation and development of diseases.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Medical Image Computing MEVIS, headquartered in Bremen, will be under new leadership as of May 1, 2014. Prof. Horst Hahn, who has been the acting director of Fraunhofer MEVIS, will team up with Prof. Ron Kikinis, M.D., a renowned scientist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, using a dual leadership model.

Tumor removal without a scalpel or x-rays is now possible due to a special type of ultrasound. Strong, concentrated ultrasonic waves are directed at the patient's body in such a way that they heat and kill individual cancer cells. A new EU-project wants to transfer this emerging, non-invasive therapy to moving organs, specifically the liver. The Fraunhofer MEVIS Institute for Medical Image Computing Bremen is coordinating "TRANS-FUSIMO".

What happens when chemicals flow through the blood stream into the liver and react with the organ? What if parts of the liver are damaged and medicine cannot be properly metabolized? A new computer simulation can now answer questions such as these in greater detail.

Taking tissue samples can often be a traumatic experience for breast cancer patients. There are also significant costs associated with the procedure when magnetic resonance imaging is used. Fraunhofer scientists working on the MARIUS project are developing a more cost-effective biopsy method that is easier on patients. They will showcase new alternative technologies and techniques combining MR and ultrasound imaging at MEDICA 2013 in Düsseldorf (Hall 10, Booth F05) from November 20 to 23.

Which technological advancements can we expect to see in the field of medical technology? How well can diagnosis and therapy be customized for each patient? And how much automation can medicine handle? To help answer these fundamental questions, the Fraunhofer MEVIS Institute for Medical Image Computing will hold a symposium entitled “Disruptive Innovations in Medicine” on September 4, 2013 at Jacobs University in Bremen. The occasion for the symposium is the farewell of Prof. Heinz-Otto Peitgen, founder and long-time institute director of Fraunhofer MEVIS.

Until now, surgeons have had to memorize the precise location of important blood vessels in organs and where tumors could likely be found and need to be removed. A new app for tablet computers developed by Fraunhofer MEVIS in Bremen could support surgeons in the future and help them reduce the rate of complications during operations. The system has recently been tested for the first time in Germany. On August 15, the surgical team at the Asklepios Klinik Barmbek in Hamburg successfully tested the app during a liver operation.