Research

Funding: BMBF, 45.234 EUR

Project Details:
The focus is on the problem that we classify animals according to human standards, such as those we love and those we fight against. Protecting humans from diseases that originate in the animal kingdom requires measures that are maximally detrimental to animals. The retreat weeks will focus on current and controversial research into zoonoses. Ethics and moral philosophy must also provide answers to the question of what boundaries we should draw for ourselves in these difficult decisions and what criteria we should use as a basis. The results are to be bundled into a model that can be used both as a model for questions in the scientific community and as a touchstone for academic discourse on an appropriate relationship to the "animal"

Results:

Triggered by COVID-19, zoonoses have moved into the spotlight of public interest.

In zoonosis research in particular, it is important to weigh up the potential benefits for humans against the actual harm to laboratory animals.

During a retreat week, experts discussed and prepared helpful contributions on conflicts in the field of "zoonosis research on companion animals". Based on real case constellations, an argumentative path through the numerous value contradictions was shown, which represents an extreme condensation of fundamental animal ethical conflicts based on real, concrete scenarios.

The project initially dealt with the clarification of terms: what makes an animal a laboratory animal, what makes it a pet? Where do the terms overlap and what is the legal situation in different countries?

The special nature of companion animals in the context of zoonoses was explored in an ethical and scientific manner. Younger researchers in particular were confronted with the ethical aspect of zoonosis research for the first time and found an ethical exchange on the topic very helpful.

The results of the project were documented in the special issue of the Journal of Applied Animal Ethics Research published in fall 2023 and provide a good basis for a refined model for future interdisciplinary writing projects. A continuation of the project from summer 2024 in the form of European summer schools is planned.

Funding: Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur Niedersachsen, 25.000 EUR

Project Details:
Im Rahmen des Projektes sollen wichtige, an niedersächsischen Hochschulen im Einsatz befindliche audiovisuelle Systeme zur Videoaufzeichnung und -kommunikation für die Digitale Lehre verbessert, mit Schnittstellen zur interaktiven Nutzung versehen, besser in vorhandene Lernplattformen integriert und ihre Bereitstellung über die Academic Cloud vorbereitet werden.

Results:

Im Rahmen des Verbundvorhabens "Audiovisuelle Systeme und Videoplattform (AVVP)" erfolgten an der Stiftung Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover Maßnahmen zum langfristigen Einsatz von Opencast; außerdem wurden u.a. diverse Hörsäle bzw. Lehrveranstaltungsräume für die hybride Lehre und für die Aufzeichnung von Veranstaltungen technisch ausgestattet.

https://hochschuledigital-niedersachsen.de/home/audiovisuelle-systeme-und-videoplattform/

Cooperation Partners:

Universität Osnabrück (Projektleitung)

Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaft und Kunst Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen

Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig

Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover

Hochschule Hannover

Hochschule Osnabrück

Jade Hochschule

Ostfalia Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften

Technische Universität Braunschweig

Technische Universität Clausthal

Universität Vechta

Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Funding: Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur Niedersachsen, 100.630 EUR

Project Details:
Das beantragte Projekt ConnEx adressiert mit den Lehrenden und den technischen wie didaktischen Service- und Support-Einrichtungen an den niedersächsischen Hochschulen zwei für die Dachinitiative Hochschule.digital Niedersachsen strategisch relevante Akteursgruppen und zielt auf eine strategische Förderung der Vernetzung, des Austauschs und Transfers innerhalb dieser Gruppen. Die Projektleitung hat die Leuphana Universität Lüneburg.

Results:

https://hochschuledigital-niedersachsen.de/home/connex-vernetzung-von-expertinnen-und-services/

Cooperation Partners:

Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaft und Kunst, Hochschule für Bildende

Künste Braunschweig; Hochschule Emden/Leer, Hochschule Hannover, Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover, Hochschule Osnabrück, Jade

Hochschule, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Leibniz Universität Hannover,

Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Ostfalia Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Technische Universität Clausthal, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Stiftung Universität Hildesheim, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Universität Osnabrück, Universität Vechta, ELAN e.V.

Funding: Landesjägerschaf Niedersachsen e.V. - Anerkannter Naturschutzverband, 22.863 EUR

Project Details:
The aim of this project is to compile the key statements from the literature published since 2009 on the subject of the influence of predation on selected small game species, meadow birds and other types of agricultural land. In addition, an overview of species protection projects in Germany over the last 15 years and the species mentioned is created, with special consideration of projects that are only known locally/regionally. The reason for this study arises from the fact that many species of open land, including those of wet grassland, have seen continuous and sometimes significant population declines in recent decades. This is often explained by the change in our cultural landscape. The focus here is on the changes in agricultural management forms in recent decades, as well as the general disappearance of suitable habitats, for example due to the cultivation of original habitats such as marshes, lowlands and moors and the wide and open wet grassland. In addition to the necessary programs for the conservation and improvement of these habitats and the habitat quality, the factors of predation influence and predation management deserve just as much attention. Numerous studies confirm this importance. The predation is to be placed in a close reciprocal relationship with the habitat and the weather. Optimum weather conditions and high-quality habitat enable high rearing rates and low mortality rates, so that losses by predators can be compensated. However, under today's often suboptimal habitat conditions in our cultivated landscape and an additional high density of predators, it is not possible to achieve sufficient rearing rates to stabilize the corresponding populations.The aspect of habitat quality is given more consideration in more recent studies than in the studies up to 2009. In addition, there are the results of a number of species protection projects that have not yet been scientifically published, but which undoubtedly provide valuable information for dealing with the predation issue.

Funding: Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur (MWK) Niedersachsen, 250.000 EUR

Project Details:
The DILEAVET project aims to optimize the existing framework conditions at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover for the design of digital teaching, the examination system and for the teaching of clinical-practical skills, and thus at the same time to create conditions that support the "FERVET" project.

Results:

Im Projekt DILEAVET wurden u. a. folgende Ergebnisse in den 4 Arbeitspaketen (AP) erzielt:

Im AP 1 "Weiterentwicklung von digitalem Schulungsmaterial und -angeboten" wurde ein Vermittlungskonzept erarbeitet. Für die Themenfelder elektronische Prüfungen und digitales Lehren und Lernen wurden bereits bestehende Schulungsmaterialien aktualisiert, neue Anleitungen angefertigt sowie Online-Seminare durchgeführt.

Im AP 2 "Wissenstransfer" wurden Videos angefertigt, welche auf dem YouTube-Kanal der TiHo "TiHoVideos" oder intern zur Verfügung stehen; außerdem wurde u.a. ein virtuelles Mikroskop für das Fach Mikrobiologie für die Studierenden und als OER-Beitrag eine Sammlung zu Modellen erstellt.

Im AP 3 "Entwicklung und Etablierung von Modellen und Lernstationen im CSL" erfolgte eine Entwicklung von Escape-Room-Szenarien und deren Etablierung in Lehrveranstaltungen sowie die Entwicklung und Etablierung von Simulatoren und Lernstationen zum Thema Zier- und Wildvögel-Tierarten.

Im AP 4 "Digitalisierungskonzept zu kommunikativen Kompetenzen" wurden Best-Practice-Videos und Worst-Case-Videos zur Schulung kommunikativer Kompetenzen erstellt.

 

OER-Beitrag auf "twillo"

https://www.twillo.de/edu-sharing/components/render/9a067b21-c565-4894-a380-d2630c8f8fc8

 

TiHoVideos:

https://www.youtube.com/user/tihovideos

 

ENZIG-STROHM A, KNOLL M T, BETTERMANN V, CHODZINSKI A, HEINEMANN I, TIPOLD A, WISSING S, SCHAPER E: Tierschutzgerechte Vermittlung klinisch-praktischer Fertigkeiten. Tierschutztagung 2023, 16.03.2023 - 18.03.2023, München

Funding: Technische Informationsbibliothek Hannover (TIB); FKZ 56000016-39/TiHo, 3.505 EUR

Project Details:
The topic of "mobile slaughtering" is currently moving into the focus of the meat industry, as this particularly meets the aspects of regionality and animal welfare. It can be assumed that animals are subjected to more stress during conventional slaughtering, especially during transport to the slaughterhouse, than when they are gently stunned and slaughtered in their usual environment. So-called "mobile slaughtering" is subject to special and partly new legal backgrounds with associated official approval procedures. Within the framework of the project, a teaching unit for veterinary students on the subject of "mobile slaughtering" is to be created as a supplement to and comparison with conventional slaughtering. The teaching unit will address legal backgrounds, animal welfare as well as food quality and safety. In addition, further teaching material (presentations, legal texts, etc.) will be created, prepared and made available to the students on the TiHo-Moodle learning platform together with the teaching unit. The teaching unit can be used by all students of veterinary medicine in the German-speaking countries via the portal twillo. In addition, it is tangential to the field of agriculture (agrarian sector), the butcher and butchery sector, as well as other veterinarians who are already active in the public veterinary sector and come into contact with the associated licensing procedures. Likewise, the teaching unit enables the interested consumer community to gain insight into this field.

Funding: EU Commission, Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, 724.000 EUR

Project Details:
Finanzielle Zuwendung für die Arbeiten am EU Referenzlabor für Klassische Schweinepest
(Work program according to Annex IV of the Council Directive 2001/89/EC)

Cooperation Partners:

Dr. Christoph Staubach (FLI Riems)

Funding: MWK Niedersachsen, 69.925 EUR

Project Details:
Since the first description of SARS-CoV2 and the related disease COVID-19 in December 2019 various in vitro and in vivo models were utilized to investigate viral life cycle and pathophysiology as basis for effective treatment strategies. In vivo models used to investigate SARS-CoV2 or respiratory viral infections in general range from small animals models to non-human primate models (Munoz-Fontela et al., 2020). But next to the ethical questions accompanying animal models in scientific research also not all questions related to human respiratory epithelium can be examined with (small) animal models. Immortalized human cell lines like Caco-2, Calu-3 or HEK293T which are regularly used to investigate respiratory viruses like influenza or Human Respiratory Syncytial virus (RSV) and also Corona Virus infections (SARS, MERS) are frequently applied to investigate infection and replication of SARS-CoV2; however, although these cell lines are comparatively easy and cost effective to grow, they only poorly recapitulate physiological conditions of the respiratory epithelium. Even cell lines such as A549 cells barely reflect the phenotype of lung epithelium. Human primary bronchial epithelial cells (hBECs) represent a more physiological in vitro model and are also utilized in SARS-CoV2 research (Hoffmann et al., 2020). These cells can be isolated from donor lung tissue, expanded in vitro and matured in Air-Liquid-Interface (ALI) cultures (Hoffmann et al., 2020). While the main focus of our group is scalable generation and utilization of cardiovascular and respiratory derivatives from induced pluripotent stem cells for disease modelling, drug screening and cellular therapies (Merkert et al., 2019; Katsirntaki et al., 2015; Kempf et al., 2014; Schmeckebier et al., 2013; Zweigert et al., 2011), we have recently also established isolation of primary human airway cells of consistent high quality: Hannover Medical School is the leading German lung transplantation center with about 100 lung transplantation per year. In close collaboration with our transplant surgeons and the group of Prof. Danny Jonigk (Pathology, MHH), we are routinely preparing hBECs from bronchial tissue that can be culture-expanded and cryopreserved for later applications. Also maturation of these hBECs is already well established in our group and matured proximal epithelial cells are already provided to partners for investigation of SARS-CoV2 as well as other respiratory viral infections (e.g. RSV). While these primary hBECs represent a superior in vitro model for SARS-CoV2 infection studies and COVID disease modelling, they do represent only one respiratory compartment. Infection by SARS-CoV2 not only occurs in the upper throat and nasal tract, trachea and bronchi, but also in the alveolar epithelium. Therefore also organotypic in vitro models that reflect the distal lung compartment are urgently required. While maintenance and expansion of isolated type II alveolar epithelial cells (AT2 cells) was so far impossible, substantial progress was very recently made, and protocols that enable production of such cells in larger numbers have been developed. So called Alveolospheres, organoids consisting of alveolar type 1 and 2 cells, allow expansion and maturation of isolated distal epithelial cell in vitro and were recently used to model SARS-CoV2 infection (Karsura et al., 2020; Salahudeen et al., 2020). Although organoid cultures enabled in vitro culture of AT1 and AT2 cells, we believe ALI cultures would represent a more physiological system with air exposure of the epithelial cells and could subsequently allow co-culture systems with endothelial cells as well as macrophages to create more complex organotypic in vitro models of the alveolar lung compartment. By utilizing our experience from differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells (Katsirntaki et al., 2015; Schmeckebier et al., 2013) we aim to establish isolation, 2D expansion and cryopreservation of human AT2 cells, and further maturation and differentiation in type I alveolar epithelial (AT1) cells in an ALI culture system for in vitro modelling of SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Cooperation Partners:

Prof. Dr. Ulrich Martin, Dr. rer. nat. Ruth Olmer

Leibniz-Forschungslaboratorien für Biotechnologie und künstliche Organe, Klinik für Herz-, Thorax-, Transplantations- und Gefäßchirurgie - Medizinische Hochschule Hannover

Funding: SprinD, 684.523 EUR

Project Details:
Current antiviral agents mainly target stages in the viral life cycle such as viral attachment to host cell or replication of viral RNA and DNA. Most of the available antiviral agents are effective against replicating viruses only, and due to the lack of specificity, many have adverse side effects. Particularly in endemic and pandemic disease outbreaks, there is additional challenge through virus mutagenesis and the development of viral variants. Therefore, approaches, which target various virus variants are urgently needed. Current paradigms in antiviral treatment involve usage of small molecules and/or therapeutic antibodies. Small molecules often have secondary targets and thus can cause side effects. Antibodies are expensive, their administration is mostly limited to clinical settings, and also they are affected by mutations. In an endemic or pandemic situation, therapies which have broad coverage within virus families, prevent transmission, and can be safely applied during mild and moderate illness are especially valuable.

Our novel approach aims to fill this need through the use of CRISPR/Cas13, an enzyme from bacteria, which cleaves RNA, including the viral genome (of RNA viruses) and of viral mRNA, thereby blocking viral replication and generation of viral proteins. Our therapeutic strategy has no secondary targets, and can be produced at GMP level at low cost. Through a specific combination of so-called crRNAs, Cas13 is directed to different viral mRNAs and to different sites within the viral genome. The crRNAs are selected such that no human RNA is targeted, and therefore no adverse side effects can be expected. This technology can easily be adapted for any single stranded RNA virus. Through targeting different and highly conserved regions, this approach antagonizes also emerging variants of the original virus.

Cooperation Partners:

Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Zeisberg, Universitätsmedizin Göttingen

Funding: Niedersächsischen Ministeriums für Wissenschaft und Kultur , 3.452 EUR

Project Details:
The aim was to create a course on the topic of "Basic training in the use of fluorescence microscopy" for students of biology and veterinary medicine via the documentation system in the TiHo Moodle platform. This module can be completed by the students in self-study. It is underpinned by texts, videos and subject-specific questions that must be answered after processing and viewing the videos. Essential parts of the content are also made available online as summarizing units as OER in the Twillo portal and are particularly suitable for students from natural science courses, pupils and trainees in (veterinary) medical professions.