Carl Zeiss Foundation enables the establishment of a transfer center for digitization in the health industry (Digi-FIT). Mannheim University convinces with excellent research

December 11, 2018

With its digitalization project "Digi-FIT", Mannheim University of Applied Sciences is one of the seven winners in the Carl Zeiss Foundation competition in the "Transfer" program line. With this funding program, the foundation supports universities of applied sciences in developing structures and competences in the field of "digitalization". With its project to set up a transfer center for digitization in the health industry (Digi-FIT), Mannheim has been led by professors dr. Carsten Hopf, dr. Matthias Rädle (both research center CeMOS) and dr. Rüdiger Rudolf (Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology) was designed, convinced. The focus is on Industrie 4.0 applications and the secure, automated processing and exploitation of data that is emerging in the face of technological advances in the digitization of biomedical images and biomolecular information. The innovation potential of the center, which will now be supported for three years with around 750,000 euros, lies in the added-value combination of newly developed functionalities, interfaces and applications.

"The grant is an excellent fit for the university's research and transfer strategy," said the Vice-Rector for Research and Technology Transfer, Prof. Dr. med. Mathias Hafner. "She emphasizes the high quality of the research achievements and the transfer potential of the university and motivates further intensification of the transdisciplinary cooperation in the main research areas." Furthermore, the university could expand its competences in the field of digitization by building up resources for the "Big -Data "processing and relevant IT expertise sustainably strengthen.

The Digi-FIT Transfer Center rests on four pillars: (A) Smart Production - Industry 4.0, (B) Data Integration and Big Data Machine Learning for Data from Multimodal Biomedical Analytics and Imaging, (C) Data Visualization and Virtual Engineering, and (D) Cyber ​​security. Infrastructure and know-how of pillars C and D are provided by the university from existing competence centers. The functionalities that Digi-FIT wants to realize include aspects of centralized data hosting, data quality, integrity and security. "On the one hand, from a scientific-technical perspective, it is our goal to be able to realize even more competently networked measuring devices in the sense of Industry 4.0, Smart Devices", explains project coordinator Prof. Dr. med. Carsten Hopf, head of CeMOS. "On the other hand, we will continue to evolve our data-intensive device infrastructures in mass spectrometry imaging and 3D microscopy through innovative image and signal processing, consistently building on platforms for the development of products and services with industry."

The transdisciplinary research project "Medical Biotechnology / Medical Technology" and "Intelligent Sensing" is being carried out by the Center for Mass Spectrometry and Optical Spectroscopy (CeMOS), Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Institute of Medical Informatics, Competence Center Virtual Engineering (KVE) and Competence Center Information Security (KIS). They cooperate inter alia. with the joint institute for medical technology of the University of Heidelberg and the University of Mannheim with the research campus M2OLIE, the economic development of the city of Mannheim, the network Smart Production, numerous universities in Germany and abroad and v.a. more than 100 regional companies and networks. The new project will be integrated into the Innovation Partnership "Multimodal Analytics and Intelligent Sensing for the Healthcare Industry" (M2Aind).

"Digi-FIT is another building block to expand and strengthen the position of the University of Mannheim as a nationally important research player at the interface between life sciences, Industrie 4.0 technologies and computer science," the vice rector is sure. The Transfer Center strengthens the opportunities to create digitization added value for ongoing projects, to carry out further cooperation projects with (small and medium-sized) enterprises, to effectively transfer project results to the industry and to develop cooperation with the companies of the region in important innovation topics.

About the Carl Zeiss Foundation
The Carl Zeiss Foundation has set itself the goal of creating freedom for scientific breakthroughs. As a partner of excellent science, it supports basic research as well as application-oriented research and teaching in the fields of MINT (mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology). Founded in 1889 by the physicist and mathematician Ernst Abbe, the Carl Zeiss Foundation is the oldest private scientific foundation in Germany. It is the sole owner of Carl Zeiss AG and SCHOTT AG. Their projects are financed from the dividend distributions of the two foundation companies.

See source Mannheim University, press spokesman Bernd Vogelsang