Calendar of Events

Online Annual Report 2018

• January: Dr. Breuer takes office

Dr. Ulrich Breuer, the new Administrative Director, was officially inaugurated during the award presentation ceremony on January 8. In this new role, Breuer, together with the Scientific Director, Professor Roland Sauerbrey, presented the HZDR Awards 2017. The top three winning teams in the HZDR Innovation Contest were also presented with an award. This competition was sponsored for the first time in 2017.

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• February: Teachers find out about innovative resources research

On February 16, teachers from the whole of Saxony took up the invitation of the HZDR DeltaX School Lab to undergo a day of advanced training at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology. On the agenda: “The digital circular economy − current aspects of recycling, refurbishment and remote sensing”. Using the “Fairphone” as an example, the educators discovered which metals and other reusable materials are needed in modern communication devices, and how they can be recovered with the greatest sustainability. The participants also learned about modern and environmentally safe exploration and extraction methods.

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• March: Beller Lectureship for Alina Deac

HZDR physicist Dr. Alina Deac (Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research) was among the guests invited to the Spring Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) in Los Angeles, California: She received an APS Beller Lectureship for her achievements in the field of “magnetism and its applications“. Deac delivered her lecture on “Spin Polarization and Spin Order in Heterostructures and Oscillators” on March 18.

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• April: Topping-out ceremony at the NCT Dresden

The Dresden site of the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) is starting to take shape. On April 13, a celebratory wreath was hoisted onto the top of the building’s shell on the premises of the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus. This is where a special research platform is being built over three floors: Interdisciplinary cancer research and patient care will be united under one roof, with the intention of feeding off each other. NCT Dresden is a joint institution of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the Faculty of Medicine at the Technische Universität Dresden, the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden (UKD), and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). Saxony’s Minister-President Michael Kretschmer joined forces with Professor Michael Baumann (DKFZ), Dr. Ulrich Breuer (HZDR), and Wilfried Winzer (UKD) to symbolically hammer in the final nails.

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• May: HZDR stages its third Health Days

From May 15 to 18, the HZDR Main Campus was dedicated entirely to the theme of “Fit for the job”: The diverse program of the Health Days, held for the third time at the HZDR, included healthy back exercises, beginners’ Nordic Walking courses, and calisthenics taster classes. Individual health advice was also available, involving vital screening, muscle tone and bone density measurement, balance checks, and skin screening. Support from health insurance companies, local healthcare providers, and fitness centers meant that 300 places altogether were available. To round off the program, talks were given on matters such as coping with mental illnesses in the workplace and healthy eating.

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• June: Big turn-out at “Kein Wunder: Wissenschaft“ in Rossendorf

Around 2,500 guests braved the hot summer weather to attend Open Lab Day on June 9. They took advantage of the opportunity to explore the whole spectrum of modern research in the HZDR laboratories – innovative electronic materials for storage and computer technologies and miniature sensors; strong magnets; new recycling concepts for reusable materials; the development of radio-pharmaceuticals and medical devices; astroparticle research; and unique concepts for accelerators.

The biggest attractions were the Research Facilities at the HZDR – the ELBE Center for High-Power Radiation Sources, the Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory, and the Ion Beam Center. The newly built Center for Radiopharmaceutical Tumor Research (ZRT) opened its doors to the public for the first time, offering guided tours.

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• July: Summer students from three continents

The seventh HZDR Summer Student Program attracted 17 students from twelve different countries – China, Great Britain, India, Japan, Croatia, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Belarus – to Dresden. Under the expert guidance of a mentor, the students spent seven to twelve weeks of their semester break working independently on their own research topic. The program, involving work at the HZDR laboratories and a public presentation of the results, also included a series of lectures on HZDR research fields, as well as group trips and leisure activities. The program is open to students of science and technology. A scientific jury examines all applications and selects suitable candidates. The minimum requirement is a Bachelor’s degree or an equal qualification.

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• August: Homing in on cancer

The National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Dresden established an imaging platform for patient-oriented research, worth €6 million. The ensemble includes an integrated whole-body device for combined magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), a dual-energy computer tomograph (DE-CT), and two state-of-the-art ultrasound systems. Such high-end imaging for medical research is available only at a handful of locations in Europe. The ensemble at NCT Dresden is earmarked for research around the clock. Cancer patients benefit from the excellent facilities in the context of clinical studies.

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• September: Inauguration of the Center for Radiopharmaceutical Tumor Research

The Center for Radiopharmaceutical Tumor Research (ZRT) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Europe’s leading-edge preclinical center for the development and production of radioactive and radioimmunological pharmaceuticals, was launched on September 4. Among the guests of honor at the official inauguration were Dr. Georg Schütte (State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research), Dr. Eva-Maria Stange (Saxony’s State Minister for Higher Education, Research and the Arts), Professor Otmar Wiestler (President of the Helmholtz Association), and Dirk Hilbert (Lord Mayor of the State Capital Dresden).
The building, constructed and equipped at a total cost of €36 million, provides an ideal platform for the entire spectrum of radiopharmacy, from basics to the transfer of knowledge to clinical application in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The building complex now brings together under one roof all laboratories for research in chemistry, biology, and physics, certified clean rooms for the production of radioactive drugs (radiopharmaceuticals), a new circular accelerator (cyclotron), areas for contemporary laboratory animal welfare, and small animal imaging at the HZDR.

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• September: Dresden does well in the Excellence Initiative

Three Clusters of Excellence at the Technische Universität Dresden were confirmed by the German Research Foundation (DFG), which announced the results of the Federal Government’s third Excellence Initiative on September 27. The HZDR is involved in two clusters: “PoL: Physics of Life” seeks to explore fundamental life processes, starting with molecules and their organization within the cell. HZDR biophysicist Professor Karim Fahmy and his team are active in this field. In addition, a dedicated experimental bench for biological experiments is to be set up at the Terahertz facility TELBE in the ELBE – Center for High-Power Radiation Sources at the HZDR. In the “ct.qmat: Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter” cluster, scientists from Würzburg and Dresden cooperate to investigate fundamentally novel states of matter. Professor Jochen Wosnitza and his team at the Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory will contribute their vast experience and unique experimental equipment to the undertaking.

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• October: Construction gets underway on new metallurgy pilot plant in Freiberg

The symbolic first cut of the spade performed by Saxony’s State Minister for Research, Dr. Eva-Maria Stange, on October 17 marked the start of construction work on a new pilot plant at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF). The institute, which is part of the HZDR and works in close collaboration with the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, is thus further expanding its research into the sustainable extraction and recycling of strategic resources. The Free State of Saxony is financing the new development with a total investment of €10.2 million. The building will house a 12-meter-high technology hall and a 15-metre-high transverse building section with function rooms.

Most of the hall space, measuring more than 1,000 square meters, is earmarked for installations and equipment for processes involving heat and water. The facility will enable researchers to combine different processes and operations in pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy in a variety of practical applications up to pilot scale, and to analyze complex, digitally connected procedures down to the smallest detail. The aim is to help innovative ideas and concepts for extracting and recycling reusable materials in the laboratory achieve market maturity more quickly.

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• October: DeltaX School Lab gets new laboratory wing

The Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf officially launched the new laboratory wing of the DeltaX School Lab on October 30. The symbolic ribbon was cut by Saxony’s State Minister of Culture, Christian Piwarz, together with Dr. Volkmar Dietz (Head of Large Facilities and Basic Research at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research), Dirk Hilbert (Lord Mayor of the State Capital Dresden), and Professor Roland Sauerbrey (Scientific Director of the HZDR). On a subsequent tour of the laboratory, students showed the 60-or-so-strong guests from education, politics, and science a number of experiments and the new options available at DeltaX.

The HZDR had invested a total of €1.5 million in building and equipping the laboratory wing, housed in a new building that was completed in 2018. Many schools in Saxony and south Brandenburg make regular use of the experimental days offered at DeltaX to expand on curriculum content in science at an extracurricular learning place. The HZDR School Lab seeks to give young people the opportunity to actively address and give critical thought to matters regarding nature, technology, the environment, and society. Another aim is to help talented young people get excited about STEM subjects in their early years.

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• November: Initiation of research cooperation with Australia

The HZDR and Monash University, based in Melbourne, Australia, have agreed to step up cooperation. On November 22, representatives from both institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding to that effect in Melbourne. Cooperation focuses primarily on radiopharmacy and sensor development. A group of high-level HZDR scientists from different disciplines accompanied the delegation, led by HZDR Directors Professor Roland Sauerbrey and Dr. Ulrich Breuer, to Australia. Dr. Holger Stephan (Institute of Radiopharmaceutical Cancer Research) and Professor Bart Follink (Head of the School of Chemistry, Monash University) are the people to contact in matters of content. The two institutions have been working together for over a decade. Monash is one of the world’s leading universities for Pharmacy and Pharmacology; QS, the international higher education and career network, currently ranks it third in the world.