Press Releases, News - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Ein besonderer Anlass im Großen Hörsaal des HZDR: Mit einem Symposium wurde Prof. Manfred Helm, bisher Direktor am Institut für Ionenstrahlphysik und Materialforschung, am 20. März 2026 in den Ruhestand verabschiedet. Kolleg*innen aus dem In- und Ausland blickten auf gemeinsame wissenschaftliche Wegmarken in der Terahertz-Physik und der Forschung zu 2D-Materialien zurück. Im Anschluss an die Veranstaltung haben wir mit Manfred Helm über prägende Momente am HZDR und seine Pläne für die kommende Zeit gesprochen.

On September 9 and 10, 2026, HZDR will host the international scientific conference “Building Bridges”. This year’s conference will be held under the theme “Shaping the Future of Energy.” It will bring together stakeholders from science, industry, and politics to discuss key issues related to the energy transition. Experts have until April 15 to submit contributions for two program items: “Lightning Talks” and “Poster Session.”

Das HZDR und die Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Dresden (HTWD) gehen einen neuen Weg der Zusammenarbeit. Beide Einrichtungen haben am 2. April 2026 ihre erste gemeinsame Berufungsvereinbarung unterzeichnet. Im Zentrum steht eine Professur für Großgeräteforschungstechnik an der Fakultät Elektrotechnik der HTWD. Die Professur ist zugleich mit der Leitung der Zentralabteilung Forschungstechnik am HZDR verbunden. Forschung und Anwendung rücken damit enger zusammen.

Der Vorstand des Helmholtz-Zentrums Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) und der Sächsische Kultusminister Conrad Clemens haben am Mittwoch, 1. April 2026, den HZDR-Lehrkräftepreis 2026 überreicht. Mit der Auszeichnung würdigt das Forschungszentrum Lehrkräfte aus ganz Sachsen für herausragende MINT-Bildungsarbeit. Den ersten Preis nahm Karsten Beuche vom Martin-Rinckart-Gymnasium Eilenburg entgegen. Er entwickelte mehrere digitale Lernplattformen und engagiert sich in außergewöhnlicher Weise für moderne naturwissenschaftliche Bildung innerhalb und außerhalb der Schule.

In dryland ecosystems, increased environmental stress often triggers a change from a uniform vegetation cover to patchy vegetation patterns. Some theoretical studies suggest that this spatial self-organization of vegetation helps ecosystems delay desertification or even avoid it altogether. Using a new theoretical framework that takes account of previously neglected but for capturing reality highly relevant parameters, Dr. David Pinto-Ramos and Dr. Ricardo Martinez-Garcia from the Center for Advanced Systems Understanding (CASUS) at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) demonstrate that this is not the case in general.

Auf der diesjährigen Frühjahrstagung der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft (DPG) in Dresden wurde Dr. Martin Rehwald mit dem Nachwuchspreis des Arbeitskreises Beschleunigerphysik 2026 ausgezeichnet.

Die geplante Forschungsinfrastruktur Dresden Advanced Light Infrastructure (DALI) am Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) hat eine zentrale Hürde genommen: In einer aktuellen Stellungnahme würdigt der Wissenschaftsrat das Vorhaben als strategisches Leuchtturmprojekt mit herausragender wissenschaftlicher und struktureller Bedeutung für Deutschland und Europa. Grundlage der Bewertung ist eine umfassende Evaluierung, die ein vom Wissenschaftsrat eingesetztes Expertengremium im November 2025 im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (BMFTR) am HZDR durchgeführt hat. Auf dieser Basis spricht sich der Wissenschaftsrat nun dafür aus, DALI zeitnah umzusetzen.

Since March 24, 2026, the COSMO Science Forum has been focusing on the topic of “bacteria.” Until April 30, 2026, visitors can discover the invisible inhabitants that populate our world—tiny, fascinating, and full of surprises.

Extreme Magnetfelder, Robotik für die Rohstofferkundung und Radiopharmaka gegen Krebs: Am Donnerstag, dem 19. März 2026, besuchte der Präsident der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, Prof. Martin Keller, das Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). Gemeinsam mit der Geschäftsführerin der Helmholtz-Geschäftsstelle, Dr. Sabine Helling-Moegen, machte er sich ein Bild von den Forschungsschwerpunkten, an denen HZDR-Forscher*innen in den Bereichen Materie, Energie und Gesundheit arbeiten.

HIF Scientist Dr. Richard Gloaguen Appointed Honorary Professor at TU Bergakademie Freiberg

Das Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) hat im Programm „InfraProNet“ des Freistaates Sachsen Fördermittel der Europäischen Union in Höhe von knapp fünf Mio. Euro eingeworben, um einen Ganzkörper-Positronen-Emissions-Tomographen (GK-PET) zu beschaffen. Dieses neue System gilt als Schlüsselinfrastruktur zur Weiterentwicklung der radiopharmazeutischen Krebsforschung am HZDR und stärkt zugleich die Translation neuer Entwicklungen in die klinische Anwendung am Universitätsklinikum Carl Gustav Carus Dresden (UKDD). Neuartige Radiopharmaka sowie innovative, teils KI-gestützte Bildgebungskonzepte lassen sich dadurch schneller und präziser klinisch validieren und in die Versorgung von Patient*innen überführen.

At the Waste Management Symposium 2026 in Phoenix (Arizona, USA), Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) guest scientist Jason Ross has been honored for his outstanding contributions to the German-French research project ActiDecorp. The project has an ambitious goal: to develop novel active substances that can efficiently remove radioactive actinides from the human body.

Metastatic prostate cancer is currently associated with high morbidity and mortality rates. In addition, patients respond very differently to standard treatments such as hormone therapy or radiation therapy. Reliable markers that can be used to predict aggressive tumor progression and treatment success at an early stage are still largely lacking. A research team led by Prof. Anna Dubrovska and Dr. Ielizaveta Gorodetska from OncoRay – National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology has now identified a biomarker that can be measured in the blood.

Photocatalysis promises an efficient conversion of abundant solar energy into usable chemical energy. Polyheptazine imides have some key structural and functional twists that make them especially interesting for photocatalysis. Now, the first systematic computational investigation of this material class confirms the high hopes placed in it.

In the cores of massive stars, the balance between carbon and oxygen is largely determined, providing the chemical foundation for life. Yet this crucial stage of stellar evolution, known as helium burning, remains insufficiently understood. To measure key nuclear reaction rates more precisely, the new junior research group HEARTS begins its work at HZDR on March 1, 2026. The Helmholtz Association is funding the project with 1,75 million euros over five years.

The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Protection, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN) supports applied basic research that is helpful for the site selection of a deep geological repository for high-level radioactive waste. Approximately 1.7 million euros have been allocated to the MALEK project. MALEK aims to develop a portfolio of methods to support the safety assessment of a nuclear waste repository. This includes developing methods that make it possible to model transport and reaction processes in crystalline host rock over a period of one million years.

Up to now, it has only been possible to deduce indirectly why high-temperature batteries lose efficiency and durability while in use. For the first time, a team from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has now used so-called operando X-ray radiography to look directly into a sodium-zinc molten salt battery at approximately 600 degrees Celsius.

February 11 is celebrated worldwide as a day dedicated to women and girls in science. Since 2015, the United Nations has used this day to highlight their achievements – and to draw attention to the fact that women are still underrepresented in many scientific disciplines. In 2026, the HZDR will once again participate in this day of action and focus on women from within its own organization.

An international team of researchers from TU Dresden, Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics Halle, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and partner institutions across Europe has developed a breakthrough method for producing MXenes – an important family of two-dimensional materials – with unprecedented purity and control. The new “gas-liquid-solid” process enables the synthesis of pure MXenes with uniformly distributed halogen atoms on the surface and a precisely tunable surface composition.

For planning animal conservation measures, it is vital to know where endangered species live and how they interact. Ecologists are successfully using tracking technology to learn about the movements of individual animals. Yet, leveraging this knowledge to understand how entire populations change in space and time, including long-term persistence and survival chances in a given area, remains a long-standing open question in ecology.

With innovative approaches to cancer radiation therapy, metal recycling, and particularly energy-efficient AI computer chips, the winners of the HZDR Innovation Contest 2025 seek to contribute to a livable future. At the HZDR Transfer Day on January 27, 2026, they were honored for their imaginative works in the field of energy, health and matter.

For decades, families in communities around Johannesburg have been living close to huge gold mining waste dumps. For many residents the dust that is released there is just part of everyday life – but it can contain natural uranium compounds that come to the surface with the mined rock. A new study in the journal Environmental Geochemistry and Health (DOI: 10.1007/s10653-025-02874-2) reveals how this exposure is reflected in children’s hair.

Bereits zum dritten Mal schreibt das HZDR den Lehrkräftepreis aus. Er richtet sich an alle Lehrkräfte der MINT-Fächer (Mathe, Informatik, Naturwissenschaften, Technik) der weiterführenden Schularten in Sachsen. Ausgezeichnet werden Kolleg*innen, die durch ihren überdurchschnittlichen Einsatz jungen Menschen Zugänge zu Wissenschaft und Forschung ermöglichen und Begeisterung für diese Themen vermitteln. Nominierungen sind noch bis 20. Februar 2026 möglich.

IDEAS, a new graduate school of the Helmholtz Association, was launched in January 2026. It offers doctoral students an excellent, interdisciplinary education at the interface of data science and environmental, life, and health sciences. The aim is to prepare early-career researchers to analyze large and complex datasets and to develop data-based solutions to key societal challenges. The initiative is jointly led by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), in close collaboration with Leipzig University and TU Dresden.

Um sich über die Forschung am Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) zu informieren, hat der Staatssekretär im Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (BMFTR), Dr. Rolf-Dieter Jungk, am 22. Januar 2026 das Zentrum im Dresdner Osten besucht.

The CP2K open-source package is among the top three most widely used research software suites worldwide for simulating the behavior of atoms and molecules. Together with colleagues from Germany, Switzerland, the UK and Canada, HZDR's CASUS team has now summarized the current status in an overview article. It focuses on the practical application of CP2K and is directed at new users from theoretical chemistry, materials science and neighboring fields.

A research team at the HZDR has developed a radiopharmaceutical molecule marker that can visualize tumors that carry the cell surface protein Nectin-4. This primarily occurs in the body in cases of urothelial carcinoma, a common form of bladder cancer. In pre-clinical trials, the drug candidate, NECT-224, proved stable and was successfully used in humans for the first time. As the team has now reported in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, in the future, it could be used to better identify patients who would benefit from Nectin-4 -targeted therapies.

An international research team led by scientists from the University of Rostock, École Polytechnique in France, and Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf has discovered a previously unknown form of superionic water for the first time: The researchers have succeeded in experimentally discovering an exotic, highly electrically conductive phase at the European XFEL X-ray laser near Hamburg and the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at SLAC in the USA. It may occur inside ice giants such as Uranus and Neptune.

Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have uncovered previously unobserved oscillation states – so-called Floquet states – in tiny magnetic vortices. Unlike earlier experiments, which required energy-intensive laser pulses to create such states, the team in Dresden discovered that a subtle excitation with magnetic waves is sufficient.

A team of six researchers from the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) has reached the first round of the current SPRIND Tech Metal Transformation Challenge. This secures the HIF team, which is part of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), more than one million euros in funding from the Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIND) for the coming year. The young team will then test and further develop the proposed process for recovering technology metals from electronic waste in order to reach the next stage of the three-stage innovation competition if the evaluation is positive.

Am 1. Januar 2026 hat Dr. Heidrun Groß die Leitung der Personalabteilung am Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) übernommen. Damit ist sie gemeinsam mit ihrem Team für alle Personalangelegenheiten der rund 1.500 Beschäftigten am HZDR einschließlich Personalentwicklungsplanung und Personalmanagement zuständig.