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Topics in January

Jan 18, 2016

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Living among Stones

Subjected to wind and weather. Anna Gorbushina, a microbiologist, is researching possibilities for halting weathering processes in statues and buildings.

Scientists from Freie Universität and Saint Petersburg State University are researching how biofilms act as weathering agents of stone surfaces and how this process can be stopped.

Jointly, they are tracking down the microorganisms that attack stones, monuments, and facades and form soils. Recently at a workshop in Dahlem, Berlin-based mineralogists and geomicrobiologists – as well as soil scientists and biologists from Saint Petersburg – got together to pool their insights.

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Research to Reduce Animal Testing

As a way to replace animal experiments, scientists grow skin models from skin cells and use the models for testing new anti-cancer drugs and other medications.

State of Berlin finances professorship at Freie Universität to develop alternative methods in research and teaching activities

Berlin’s first university professorship dedicated to research on alternatives to animal testing is being established at Freie Universität Berlin. The goal is to develop disease models based on human tissue cells and human organs reconstructed from those cells.

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“Suddenly everything was different”

Peter Szondi (left) and religion scholar Gershom Scholem discuss a text by Walter Benjamin, in 1971.

Fifty years ago, Germany’s first Institute of Comparative Literature was founded – at Freie Universität Berlin. Now, master’s students have prepared an exhibition about the institute’s history and unique aspects of the program.

It’s just a word, but for Peter Szondi it made all the difference: The institute to be founded in December 1965 at Freie Universität would not be called merely the “Seminar for Comparative Literature” but rather the “Seminar for General and Comparative Literature.”

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