Research

Project Details:
Nanotechnology is a fast-moving area that finds applications in such diverse areas as material science, electronic engineering, consumer goods production, medicine, and agriculture. A recent innovation in the field is the use of plant extracts in nanoparticle synthesis. Due to the involvement of auxiliar natural substances, this so called "green nanotechnology" aims for environmentally beneficial and more biocompatible nanoparticles free from hazardous substances. Copper nanoparticles (CuNPs), synthesized using green methods, have been particularly noted for their potent insecticidal activity. On the other hand, there is a growing public awareness about the toxic potential for humans associated with nanoparticles applied to the environment. The small size of nanoparticles poses the risk of permeating the protective blood brain barrier into the nervous system, even by inhalation through the nose. The nervous system, and in particular the developing central nervous system is more sensitive to damage than other organs. Whereas developmental neurotoxicological testing usually employs large numbers of mammalian experimental animals, basic mechanisms can be studied in cell culture, or insect embryonic tissue culture.
The purpose of the project is the development of a joint multidisciplinary approach to study potential adverse effects of green-engineered nanoparticles on the developing nervous system. On the biological side, using neuronal precursor cells and/or embryonic insect nervous tissue, the effect of nanoparticles can be tested on neurotoxicological endpoints such as cell differentiation, neurotransmitter content, cell migration, neurite outgrowth, and growth cone navigation. On the material science side, modification of the production process enables to test effects influenced by nanoparticle size, biochemical modification, or effectivity of uptake.
The objective of this collaboration is to define a specific project in which the strengths of both partners, development of green-engineered nanoparticles in South Africa, and developmental neurotoxicology in Germany, are combined to gain deeper knowledge about the interaction of these new materials with living cells, connecting the distinct fields of human and environmental nanotoxicology.

Results:

Stern M, Botha N, Cloete KJ, Maaza M, Tan S, Bicker G (2024) Neurotoxicity and developmental neurotoxicity of copper sulfide nanoparticles on a human neuronal in vitro test system. Int J Mol Sci 25 (11): 5650. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25115650

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25115650

Cooperation Partners:

Dr. Karen Jacqueline Cloete, University of South Africa/iThemba Laboratory for Accelerator Based Sciences - National Research Foundation: Somerset West, Western Cape, South Africa

Funding: European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) , 275.552 EUR

Project Details:
Incidental bycatch represents a significant threat to marine species worldwide, particularly for Endangered, Threatened and Protected (ETP) species, which include marine mammals, birds, turtles and elasmobranchs. To date, efforts to minimize the bycatch of ETPs have had limited success. LIFE CIBBRiNA is a cross-border and cross-sectoral project in which research institutions, environmental authorities, fishing industry and non-governmental organizations from 13 European countries collaborate to reduce the incidental bycatch in fisheries that have a high risk of bycatch of ETPs in the North Sea, Baltic Sea, and Mediterranean Sea. The objective is to develop new bycatch mitigation methods and to promote their implementation. As part of LIFE CIBBRiNA, the ITAW will develop tools for monitoring and collection of bycatch data. The incidence of bycatch will be assessed through pathological investigations of casualty animals. Carcass drifting models will allow the identification of bycatch hotspots, and a database will be developed to collate strandings data and to enable a temporospatial analysis of the information. Furthermore, the ITAW is engaged in the dissemination of project outcomes to relevant stakeholders (including the development of research boxes as didactic material for schools), networking with other projects and publishing the scientific results of LIFE CIBBRiNA.

Funding: Nds. Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur über Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 1.811.726 EUR

Project Details:
This initial project within the ZERN research and transfer network is dealing with the future-oriented keeping and use of fattening pigs. There are deficits in current fattening pig husbandry, particularly in the areas of animal welfare, emissions and nutrient efficiency. This project has therefore set the objective of scientifically evaluating relevant aspects of sustainable pork production synergistically and gaining new, practice-relevant knowledge.

Cooperation Partners:

Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Deutsches Institut für Lebensmitteltechnik (DIL)

Funding: Nds. Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur über Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 1.496.374 EUR

Project Details:
ZERN is a research network of the University of Göttingen, the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover and the German Institute of Food Technologies in Quakenbrück, which aims to support the transformation of the agricultural and food system in Lower Saxony, which is under increasing pressure to adapt. Aspects such as animal welfare and sustainability must be given greater consideration in agricultural production in the future. The findings from the research network should enable the sustainable production, processing and marketing of food.

Cooperation Partners:

Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Deutsches Institut für Lebensmitteltechnik (DIL)

Project Details:
Stable and consistent individual behavioral variations in animals that are generally regarded as an expression of animal personalities, and might be important drivers of ecological specialization and the evolutionary adaptive potential of species. We aim to investigate various proximate factors driving individual variations in risk-taking behavior of the grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus) as well as their relationship and explanatory value for physical cognitive performance. In the wild, this species lives under a very high predation pressure and risk taking decisions must therefore be taken on a daily basis and should be an important key to survival. We will study captive grey mouse lemurs with a longitudinal approach to investigate systematically the individual behavioral dynamics across time and different risk contexts. In a second step, personality differences will then be compared with the results from a test battery in the physical cognitive domain. Our findings will contribute to a better understanding of risk taking as one facet of animal personality in one of the world’s smallest primates.

Results:

Splinter, F.; Fichtel, C.; Radespiel, U. (2025): Wild and captive Grey Mouse Lemurs (Microcebus murinus) differ in cognitive performance. Int. J. Prim., 46, 644-663. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-025-00490-6

Project Details:
Im Rahmen der Dienstleistungen werden kontinuierlich Proben diverser Futtermittel (inkl. Tränkwasser) von Tierhaltern und Tierärzten auf ihre chemische Zusammensetzung, aber auch hinsichtlich ihrer hygienischen Qualität untersucht und bewertet. In entsprechenden Intervallen erfolgen dann Auswertungen, wobei die vorberichtlichen Informationen im Kontext zu den Untersuchungsergebnissen berücksichtigt werden. Auf diese Weise entstehen nicht zuletzt Kasuistiken, die für die Ausbildung der Studierenden, aber auch für die Fortbildung von Tierärzten, Tierhaltern oder auch Mischfutterherstellern von größtem Wert und Nutzen sind.

Funding: Drittmittelprojekt: Anschubfinanzierung MWK, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG beantragt. , 3.000 EUR

Project Details:
Forschung und Zielsetzung

Die deutsche Nordseeküste als Teil des "UNESCO Weltnaturerbe Wattenmeer" ist ein weltweit einmaliger mariner Lebensraum mit einer bisher weitgehend unbekannten Biodiversität. Aufgrund seiner besonderen Eigenschaften (z.B. hinsichtlich Gezeiten und klimatischen Bedingungen) stellt dieser Lebensraum eine besondere Herausforderung für eine Vielzahl von Organismen dar und die besonderen und diversen ökologischen Nischen im Bereich der deutschen Nordseeküste versprechen das Vorkommen von endemischen Arten und vielen bisher noch unbeschriebenen Organismengruppen. Dieser einmalige Lebensraum ist jedoch permanent durch anthropogene Einflüsse bedroht, und speziell die Auswirkungen der globalen Erderwärmung und der zunehmenden Versauerung der Meere stellen eine existenzielle Bedrohung für viele marine Organismen dar.
Dies ist weltweit das erste Mal, dass ein bedeutender Lebensraum über 25 Jahre in Folge kontinuierlich, umfassend und vergleichend quantitativ in seiner Biodiversitätsdynamik beschrieben wird und zwar in Bezug auf ein Vierteljahrhundert globaler Veränderungen.
Wir schaffen Daten statt Spekulationen.

Arbeitsmethoden
Field work, Envrironmental Genomics, Metagenomics, Bioinformatics

Cooperation Partners:

Dr Helen Spence-Jones (she/her)

Postdoctoral Researcher

Coastal Ecology/Ökologie der Küsten

Alfred-Wegener-Institut

Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research

Wadden Sea Station

25992 List auf Sylt, Deutschland

Dr. Michael Tessler

AMNH New York

Project Details:
Mouse lemurs are the smallest primates on earth. They are endemic to Madagascar, where they are increasingly endangered by anthropogenically caused habitat degradation. Mouse lemurs are unique primate models for evolutionary, aging and genomic research. They exhibit extraordinary species diversity with limited vs. broad ranges in the Malagasy tropical forests. They have a long longevity related to body size (up to 15 years in the laboratory, about 9 years in the field) which is, however, much shorter than for common anthropoid primate models. Furthermore, some, but not all, aging individuals develop an AD-like pathology as found in Alzheimer patients or show human-like aging-related diseases such as cancer or ocular pathologies (e.g. cataracts). Likewise mouse lemurs are one of the primate models, for which the full genome is published. In 1985, Elke Zimmermann founded the colony of gray mouse lemurs of the Institute of Zoology (IfZ), by two founder pairs coming from the University of Tübingen (Jörg Ganzhorn). Founder pairs stem from the Rotterdam Zoo and were tracked back to their origin in south-eastern Madagascar (Mandena). To increase the genetic diversity of the colony, the offspring of these founders (originally based at the University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim, moving later on to the University of Constance, the German Primate Centre and finally completely to the Institute of Zoology at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hannover) were cross-bred with mouse lemurs coming from the Rotterdam Zoo, the Netherlands, in 1993 and the Parc Zoologique de Vincennes, France, in 1996. The colony is a self-sustaining breeding colony for which the life history of each individual mouse lemur is documented from birth to death in a mouse lemur database. Tissues from these individually known mouse lemurs are collected for veterinary purposes, or after the natural death of an animal. This colony of mouse lemurs is registered in the European and International Studbook of the Cheirogaleidae. Animals are used for non-invasive integrative and comparative research in the field of behaviour, physiology, reproduction, sensory biology, communication, cognition, genetics/genomics, aging, conservation biology and veterinary medicine. Furthermore, they are used for comparative research projects that are conducted together with several academic institutions studying the effect of different factors (e.g. general maintenance conditions, different photoperiod regimes, enrichment, group composition, genetic lineages) on the physiology, behaviour, communication, cognition, reproduction, longevity and health status of the colonies.

Results:

e.g.

The Tabula Microcebus Consortium*; Ezran, C.; Liu, S.; Chang, S.; Ming, J.; Botvinnik, O.; Penland, L.; Tarashansky, A.; de Morree, A.; Travaglini, K.J.; Zhao, J.; Wang, G.; Hasegawa, K.; Sin, H.; Sit, R.; Okamoto, J.; Sinha, R.; Zhang, Y.; Karanewsky, C.J.; Pendleton, J.L.; Morri, M.; Perret, M.; Aujard, F.; Stryer, L.; Artandi, S.; Fuller, M.; Weissman, I.L.; Rando, T.A.; Ferrell Jr., J.E.; Wang, B.; De Vlaminck, I.; Yang, C.; Casey, K.M.; Albertelli, M.A.; Pisco, A.O.; Karkanias, J.; Neff, N.; Wu, A.R.; Quake, S.R.; Krasnow, M.A. (2025): Tabula Microcebus: A molecular cell atlas of mouse lemur, an emerging model primate. Nature, 644:173-184. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09113-9. (* U.R. member of the Microcebus Consortium)

 

Ezran, C.; Liu, S.; Chang, S.; Ming, J.; Guethlein, L.A.; Wang, M.F.Z.; Dehghannasiri, R.; Olivieri, J.; Frank, H.K.; Tarashansky, A.; Koh, W.; Jing, Q.; Botvinnik, O.; Antony, J.; The Tabula Microcebus Consortium*; Oliveira Pisco, A.; Karkanias, J.; Yang, C.; Ferrell Jr., J.E.; Boyd, S.D.; Parham, P.; Long, J.Z.; Wang, B.; Salzman, J.; De Vlaminck, I.; Wu, A.; Quake, S.R.; Krasnow, M.A. (2025): Mouse lemur cell atlas informs primate genes, physiology, and disease. Mouse lemur cell atlas informs primate genes, physiology and disease. Nature, 644: 185-196. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09114-8. (* U.R. member of the Microcebus Consortium)

 

Wittkowski, J.*; Klein, A.*; Kollikowski, A.*; Scheumann, M.*; Schmidtke, D.*; Zimmermann, E.†*; Radespiel, U.* (2024): The mouse lemurs. In: The UFAW Handbook on the Care and Management of Laboratory and Other Research Animals, 9th Edition. (H. Golledge, C. Richardson, eds.). John Wiley & Sons Ltd. (*: contributed equally to this chapter), pp. 662-682. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119555278.ch36.

 

Bleyer, M.; Radespiel, U.; Klein, A.; Kollikowski, A.; Ströbel, P.; Mätz-Rensing, K.; Gruber-Dujardin, E. (2024): Spontaneous soft tissue tumours in aged mouse lemurs. Journal of Comparative Pathology, 215, 47-54.

 

Fritz, R.; Zimmermann, E.; Meier, M.; Mestre-Francés, N.; Radespiel, U.; Schmidtke, D. (2020): Neurobiological substrates of animal personality and cognition in a nonhuman primate (Microcebus murinus). Brain and Behavior, e01752. https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.1752.

Cooperation Partners:

Prof. Pees, Klinik für Heimtiere

Zoo Zürich, Schweiz; Zoo Frankfurt, Zoo Landau,

Zoo Vincennes, Frankreich; Zoo Pilsen, CZ

Prof. J.-M. Verdier, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, Frankreich

Funding: Förderverein Bioökonomieforschung (FBF e.V.), 44.000 EUR

Project Details:
With the ongoing development of antibiotic‑free preservation methods for boar semen, the question arises whether these are also effective against leptospires. It should be noted that, to date, the efficacy of conventional antibiotics against leptospires in preserved semen has not been demonstrated in the available literature. The reason for this is that leptospires require special and prolonged cultivation methods.
Using the newly established assay, the growth of leptospires in long‑term preserved boar semen will be investigated. In particular, the influence of gentamicin and storage temperature will be assessed. Ultimately, the efficacy and necessity of antibiotics against leptospires will be evaluated.

Cooperation Partners:

IVD Gesellschaft für Innovative Veterinärdiagnostik mbH

Funding: Fritz-Ahrberg Stiftung, 25.000 EUR

Project Details:
The production of gluten-free sausages poses major challenges with respect to texture, flavor, and nutritional value when compared to their gluten-containing counterparts. In conventional formulations, gluten acts as a key binding agent, providing structure, elasticity, and overall product integrity. In gluten-free products, however, alternative binding systems are required. Commonly used starch-based fillers (e.g., corn starch or rice flour) often result in a sticky or brittle texture, altered flavor profiles, and suboptimal protein digestibility. Consequently, gluten-free sausages frequently exhibit poor mouthfeel, reduced juiciness, and lower protein bioavailability, negatively affecting both consumer acceptance and nutritional quality.
In recent years, the demand for gluten-free foods has increased dramatically. This growth is driven not only by individuals with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity, but also by a broader consumer segment that perceives gluten-free diets as a healthier alternative and therefore prefers such products. This rising demand has prompted food manufacturers to develop innovative gluten-free alternatives to traditional gluten-containing products such as bread, pasta, and processed meat products. However, reproducing the sensory and nutritional properties of gluten-containing foods—particularly sausages—remains a significant challenge. In this context, microbial enzymes can be employed as processing aids or food additives to more closely replicate the functional properties of gluten.
Microbial enzymes, particularly those derived from Bacillus spp., offer substantial advantages over fungal- and plant-based alternatives and are therefore highly suitable for industrial applications. They can be produced rapidly and at large scale via fermentation, ensuring cost efficiency and a stable supply. Moreover, these enzymes are generally highly thermostable, allowing them to remain functional during high-temperature processing steps such as those involved in sausage production. Owing to their cost-effectiveness, stability, and Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status, enzymes derived from Bacillus spp. represent a scalable and sustainable solution for food processing applications.
In this project, thermostable proteases and α-amylases from Bacillus spp. will be applied to address the challenges in gluten-free sausage production. Proteases will be used to hydrolyze meat proteins and to break down complex structures (e.g., collagen) into smaller, more digestible peptides and amino acids. This enzymatic process is expected to enhance texture by increasing tenderness, improve flavor through the release of taste-active amino acids, and increase nutritional value by improving protein bioavailability. Simultaneously, α-amylases will degrade excess starch from starch-based binding agents into simpler sugars, thereby improving the consistency of the sausage matrix and reducing stickiness and brittleness. In addition, the use of these enzymes represents a sustainable approach, as they are biodegradable and environmentally friendly.