Press Releases, News - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

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.