Biomedical Engineering & Robotics (BER)

Current Projects/Topics
Insect

Biodiversity is one of the most important components for the functioning of global ecosystems and represents the basis for the existence and future of mankind. Nevertheless, so far only about 10-20% of all species are known and their function in the ecosystem described. In close cooperation with the Center for Integrative Biodiversity Discovery at the Museum of Natural History Berlin, new methods are being developed to digitize large insect collections and automatically determine their species. In this way, changes in the ecosystem can be detected.

Biohandling

Model organisms such as the eggs of the zebrafish (Danio rerio) help to better understand the development of tumors and genetic diseases and to treat them more effectively. In order to find new suitable drugs or methods for treating these diseases, the sensitive eggs must first be sorted and then microscoped. Both can be automated through the use of specially developed laboratory robots. In addition, by coupling fluorescent dyes, cells can be specifically stained and made more visible. Subsequently, any changes from the normal development of fish eggs must be detected and classified using AI. The robots, fluorescence microscopes and analysis software required for this are being developed at IAI.

Automated Microscopy

For many experiments in medicine, it is necessary to microscope thousands of model organisms, such as zebrafish eggs, over and over again and search for specific characteristics or deviations. Other applications for automated microscopy include biodiversity research, for example to automatically determine the abundance of zoo plankton in seawater. For this purpose, we have developed different (fluorescence) microscope systems that microscope organisms in-vivo in a high-throughput screening and automatically recognize morphological features. With the help of AI algorithms, features can then be classified, or species can be recognized.

Image of an Ichneumonid wasp with overlaid heatmap

A fully automated sorting robot for small insects is developed in close cooperation with the Leibniz Institute for Evolutionary and Biodiversity Research in Berlin, that can classify and sort 14 different insects using machine learning methods. The quantification of insects from collected trap samples is necessary to identify threatened insect species and to take appropriate preventive measures.

Schematic illustration of an amperometric sensor

Printed, flexible sensors for measuring in-vivo ozone concentrations in tissue are designed. Additionally reference systems for calibrating new gas sensors are developed.

Zebrafish Heart Ventricel

Open Science software is developed to analyze parameters of zebrafish heartbeat such as: heart rate, rhythmicity, fractional shortening and heart wall thickness automatically from videos of zebrafish hearts.