How is the research campus making a difference?

The goal of research campus STIMULATE is to develop new patient-friendly and specifically required diagnostic and therapeutic procedures for diseases patterns relevant to society. Medical practitioners at the research campus define their specific unmet needs. Based on this information, medical engineering specialists conduct research and develop tailor-made solutions. The practitioners test these solutions and then integrate them into patient treatment.

What is unique to research campus STIMULATE is its network of individuals from academia and industry as well as its highly interdisciplinary teams representing medical practice, medical engineering, engineering, natural science, economics and communication sciences which have all come together to do joint research, development and production. The projects bring junior researchers on board at an early stage who are due to graduate from highly successful medical technology degree courses at the University of Magdeburg.

The site of research campus STIMULATE is the old warehouse in the centre of the Magdeburg Science Harbour, which was modernized to state-of-the-art standards in 2020. The partners from science and industry make joint use of the outstanding infrastructure of imaging facilities (angiography, CT, MRI) and of the other laboratories for ultrasound, robotics, virtual reality, usability, electronics, 3D printing and coworking spaces to develop the medical technology of the future.

The central vision shared by the partners is the establishment of the Science Harbour as a Medical Engineering Science Harbour which consolidates the wide array of medical technology activities.

What is the main focus of the research campus?

With its development and optimization of image-guided, minimally invasive treatments, the research campus STIMULATE targets the high-tech medical technology sector. In particular, it focuses on treatments for major common diseases such as cancer and cardiological and neurological diseases (e.g. stroke, cerebral aneurysm). In the area of oncology, the research campus STIMULATE aims at bringing about a change of perspective – the treatment that has up to now been used purely as a palliative approach to alleviate patient suffering is to be transformed into a curative method focused on healing. These optimizations concern every aspect of the clinical process, in particular AI-driven planning and therapy assistance, the enhancement of imaging (angiography, CT, MRI, ultrasound), research into new and application-optimized surgical tools, and the development of monitoring procedures to track and individually adapt the surgical process. In the current, second funding phase, the research campus STIMULATE is investigating the immunological effects of ablative surgical procedures.