Life Sciences

Sponsor: BayWa AG
Funding period: since 2021

To convert fundamental research in the fields of agriculture, food sciences and biotechnology into marketable and sustainable innovations, the TUM Venture Lab FAB offers start-up teams at the Weihenstephan campus an excellent infrastructure for lab experiments, prototype construction and business management. Through continuing education and incubator programs, the entrepreneurs receive end-to-end support, from the team building phase through to business model development and funding. Rather than just spawning individual companies, the Venture Labs strive to generate entire start-up families, facilitated through direct links to leading-edge research, a deep understanding of specific markets, and intensive networking with high-caliber partners.

The TUM Venture Labs, launched by the Technical University of Munich and UnternehmerTUM, compare favorably with the world’s leading start-up incubator programs. Specifically targeting key technology fields, they create dynamic ecosystems that bring together start-ups, research, investors and established companies.

Press release dated Sepember 29, 2021

Sponsor: Else Kröner Fresenius Foundation
Funding period: since 2004
The Else Kröner-Fresenius-Zentrum für Ernährungsmedizin (EKFZ) was established in 2003 at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and is the EKFS’s most significant individual activity to date.  Initially, three professorships in the fields of clinical, molecular and paediatric nutritional medicine were funded until 2014, which were dedicated to the following objectives:

• combining experimental and clinical research
• developing concepts for the prevention, treatment of obesity, type 2 diabetes or cancer
• training, further education and patient information

Since 2012 EKFS has been supporting the thematic development of the concept, with the addition of the factor of “movement” as another important lifestyle factor for health. Press release dated July 24, 2018.

Sponsor: Gesellschaft zur Förderung des Maschinenbaus (GfZ)
Funding period: 2014-2018
The new Endowed Professorship for Agricultural Mechatronics, which will be based at the Center of Life and Food Sciences Weihenstephan, provides a new interface between the engineering and agricultural sciences. The aim is to develop innovative technologies for land use. Initial funding for the first five years will be provided by GfZ, a subsidiary of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA). The professorship will focus particularly on developing commercial vehicles and sensor systems to increase efficiency and environmental performance in farming practices.

Sponsor: Stiftung Würth
Funding period: 2012-2017
The Würth Foundation and TUM have agreed to set up the Markus Würth Endowed Professorship for Pediatric Neuroorthopedics and Cerebral Palsy. It will be held by Prof. Renée Lampe, who has worked in this field for several years at TUM’s Klinikum rechts der Isar. Infantile cerebral palsy refers to brain damage that occurs in early childhood, often caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain at birth. It can result in motor dysfunction, muscle spasticity, speech and language disorders, behavioral disorders, learning disabilities and epilepsy.

Sponsor: Medical Park AG
Funding period: 2009-2019
There are numerous cases of people who continue to limp even after they have been fitted with a new hip – although their mobility as such has been restored. They have to learn to walk properly again before they can master their day-to-day lives or return to work. Training programs, manual therapies and physiotherapy help patients to regain their mobility, develop their muscles and improve their coordination ability following surgery on their hip, knee, spine or artificial shoulder replacements. Modern methods like bio-feedback training are employed increasingly nowadays. Hardly any systematic empirical research has been undertaken so far, however, to ascertain which of the diverse therapies, when applied at a certain time and with a certain intensity, helps the patient most.

Sponsor: AOK Bayern, Kassenärztliche Vereinigung Bayerns (KVB)
Funding period: 2008-2014
The AOK Bayern and the Kassenärztliche Vereinigung Bayerns (KVB) will finance a professorship in general medicine at the clinical center Rechts der Isar of the TUM for six years. It is the first professorship of this kind in Bavaria. They want to strengthen general medicine education. Nearly the half of all doctors work as family/general practitioners. This new professorship offers practical studies in general medicine to the students to give them exposure to this challenging and rewarding profession of a general practitioner. According to the KVB qualified junior doctors are urgently required because of the increasing average age of family doctors in Bavaria. If countermeasures are not taken many regions will suffer a lack of family doctors within a few years.

Sponsor: Integrationszentrum für Cerebralparesen (ICP – Integration Centre for Cerebral Paresis)
Funding period: 2007-2012
The Integration Centre (Integrationszentrum für Cerebralparesen - ICP) has enabled TU München to set up an ICP foundation professorship for paediatric neuro-orthopaedic disorders specialising in cerebral paresis for an initial period of five years. This will allow the Medical Faculty to introduce basic and causal research into infantile brain damage and its consequences as a scientific subject. The Buhl-Strohmaier Foundation run by Munich City Council is subsidising the project. People with cerebral paresis have multiple disabilities. The aim is for an interdisciplinary team of doctors, therapists, special and remedial pedagogues to monitor affected children – preferably from birth onwards until they have stopped growing, and beyond. The ICP can look back on more than 50 years' experience in this field and currently ranks among the most innovative centres of its kind in Germany.

Sponsor: Friedrich Schiedel Foundation
Funding period: 2004-2013
Contemporary molecular biology not only furnishes up-to-date approaches for exploring the causes of medical disorders but also casts a fresh eye on diagnostics and therapeutic concepts. Organic and genetic technology are instrumental in explaining metabolic processes on a molecular level. Today's research is not confined to gene sequencing but primarily serves to clarify the functions of the genes in terms of metabolism and biological regulation mechanisms. This ultimately enables the department to create the basis for an ultra-modern, innovative branch of medicine, namely molecular medicine, genomics, proteomics or metabolomics in general. It paves the way for completely new therapies designed to cure ailments that have hitherto been regarded as incurable. Friedrich Schiedel (1913-2001) was Honorary Senator of the TU München and one of the university`s most generous mecenas.

Sponsor: Dairy Alois Müller GmbH & Co
Funding period: 2003-2010
TU München is continually developing its Weihenstephan campus as an international Science Centre for Life & Food Sciences, Land Use and Environment. Alongside the main science of Biology, Weihenstephan is also updating and expanding its departments of Nutrition and Life & Food Sciences. The purpose of the Department for the Biofunctionality of Foodstuffs, which was set up in 2003 at the interface between Nutrition and Life & Food Sciences, is to investigate the active mechanisms of the contents of foodstuffs on a biochemical and molecular-biological level and to follow up this research from the point of view of nutritional physiology, with particular emphasis on health promotion and preventative aspects. This provides the research institution with a basis for developing innovative products for the nutrition sector in the context of "special food", "functional food" and "nutraceuticals" (designer foods) as well as dietetics.