Funding

30
Funding initiative
“Lichtenberg Professorships”
– see page 66
“Soft matter” is the central topic, even on the
staircase: (from the left) Kerstin Schindler
(chemist), Heiko Schoberth (physicist), Petra
Zippelius, Anne Horn (chemist), Dr. Li-Tang
Yan, Dr. Sujit Kumar Gosh and Gonther Jutz
(chemist) make up the team around Professor
Dr. Alexander Böker (foreground).
By means of his fine synthetic membranes with nanopores of a defined size,
he is pursuing the goal of producing tiny containers, vehicles in which cells
or medicaments can be encapsulated. One concrete application he is working
on – together with cooperation partners – is the treatment of the autoimmune
disease type I diabetes mellitus. This disease occurs in diabetics, when the
sick person’s own immune system attacks and destroys cells that produce the
vital insulin. If Alexander Böker is successful in shutting insulin-producing
cells in his revolutionary capsules, these can then be embedded into the patient’s
pancreas, where they can then discharge their contents. “The size of the pores
in the membranes we are experimenting with can be defined so exactly that
the attacking cells released by the patient’s immune system cannot get through
– thus shielding the process of insulin production.” This could lead to a cure
for diabetics.
The researcher intends to encapsulate not only cells but also drugs. It would be
most unlike a Lichtenberg Professor to stop at only one application for a new
discovery. No, his capsules must also be capable of being “activated”. Encapsulated
in his new membranes, he also wants to transport drugs – against cancer
for instance. And these should not be released until once inside the tumor.
How does he intend to achieve this? Alexander Böker is in his element as he
explains how he wants to design his pores to have functions, e.g. to open up
like an automatic door when activated by an external chemical signal. In certain
types of tumor, it might be possible to trigger such a function by means
of a very slight shift in the acidity level within the tissue: This would cause
the chemical barriers in the pores to contract, forming a sort of spiral, and
thereby opening the container. Vision? Yes – but a rather plausible one.