On November 7, 2023, the M²OLIE Research Campus once again impressively demonstrated its innovative strength. Due to the application for a third funding phase, two external experts appointed by the BMBF visited the Mannheim Research Campus (Prof. Dr. Frauke Alves, Group Leader “Translational Molecular Imaging” at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Natural Sciences and at the University Medical Center Göttingen, and Prof. Dr. Christiane Kuhl, Director of the Clinic for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at RWTH Aachen University Hospital) as well as two members of the jury for the BMBF’s “Research Campus – Public-Private Partnership for Innovation” funding initiative (Prof. Dr. Ellen Enkel, Chair of General Business Administration & Mobility, University of Duisburg-Essen, and Dr. Viola Bronsema, Managing Director of BIO Deutschland e. V.). A representative of the BMBF and representatives of the project management organizations Jülich and VDI were also present. Of course, the M²OLIE partners from industry and science were also represented in large numbers. A total of almost 80 people took part in the event.
The guests were welcomed by the Chairman of the Board of M²OLIE and Dean of the Mannheim Medical Faculty at Heidelberg University, Prof. Dr. Sergij Goerdt. Afterwards, Ministerial Director Dr. Hans J. Reiter (MWK Baden-Württemberg), Prof. Dr. Frauke Melchior (Rector of Heidelberg University) and the Lord Mayor of the City of Mannheim, Christian Specht, emphasized the outstanding importance of the Research Campus for the medical technology location of Baden-Württemberg, for Heidelberg University and for the City of Mannheim. The members of the Steering Committee Prof. Dr. Stefan Schönberg (Director of the Clinic for Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, UMM) and the Project Committee Prof. Dr. Carmen Wängler (Head of the Biomedical Chemistry Working Group, KRN, UMM) presented how M²OLIE can achieve a paradigm shift in tumor therapy based on the progress made in the M²OLIE closed-loop process.
Afterwards, there was an actual tour along the stops of the “basic process” already developed in M²OLIE, from patient admission to biopsy (minimal viable closed loop). In the M²OLIE center, the experts were first allowed to take a seat on the TEDIAS chair as a patient, where, supported by an avatar, blood pressure, blood oxygen saturation, hand strength and temperature were measured, among other things. As part of the presentations on time-efficient digital anamnesis, the many connected sub-projects in M²OLIE were also introduced: the operational platform, also known as the M²OLIE “cockpit”, which was developed as a higher-level instance for orchestrating the complex, dynamic treatment process of patients with oligometastases, as well as connections to the mint Lesion™ and Kaapana software for biopsy planning and image fusion.
At the next stop, the experts and jurors were able to experience a robot-assisted biopsy live in the angio suite, as made possible by the guidoo in M²OLIE. The use of the robot shortens the planning time for the needle intervention and increases the accuracy of the procedure. This means that the patient is treated more gently and quickly. After the biopsy was taken from the patient, the guests were given further insights into the progress of the closed-loop process. The M²OLIE team presented the results and the innovative projects planned for the third funding phase: the use of intelligent mass spectrometry, the in-vitro evaluation of theranostics in the M²OLIE laboratory, the research and development of highly specific radiotracers, which is necessary for the tailored therapy of the patient, the numerous potentials in tumor board design, the smart optical support in the intervention room by the OR-Companion, the efficient inventory and monitoring in the operating room thanks to the intelligent Seek workflow, the use of the coil developed with RAPID Biomedical in MRI, the latest developments in seed implantations and Kypho-IORT, the newly developed intro-CT system on the CT Flash and the integrated system for checking the progress of ablation during interventions. The tour was led by Dr. Hannah Schlott, Organizational Director of the UMM Living Lab, and Dr. med. Fabian Tollens, Assistant Physician in the Department of Radiology, UMM.
Due to the many interested questions from the reviewers and jurors and the resulting exciting discussions, frontal presentations were largely dispensed with in the afternoon. Further questions were answered in an interactive discussion round, e.g. on the planned projects and the research strategy in the third funding phase (Prof. Dr. Steffen Diehl, Senior Physician at KRN, UMM, and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jan Stallkamp, Director of MIISM, UMM). In particular, the future bundling of the projects into a joint project with four modules is intended to interlink the closed-loop processes developed in the last two funding phases even more closely and do justice to the efficient management of the large amount of data generated. Questions were also answered about the M²OLIE clinic as a flagship hospital (Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Hennes, Medical Director, UMM), the significance of the public-private partnership for the industry (Dr. Robert Krieg, Vice President Advanced Solutions & Therapy, Siemens Healthineers, and Dr. Florian Odoj, Managing Director, RAPID Biomedical GmbH) and the continuation strategy of M²OLIE (Prof. Dr. Katja Patzel-Mattern, Vice Rector Innovation & Transfer, Heidelberg University, and Prof. Dr. Armin Heinzl, Chair of General Management and Information Systems, University of Mannheim). The panel discussion was chaired by Prof. Dr. Frank Giordano, Director of the Clinic for Radiotherapy and Radiooncology and PD Dr. Isabelle Ayx, Specialist in Diagnostic Radiology, UMM.
Overall, the on-site visit was once again very successful from the point of view of the M²OLIE employees. In the past ten years – the Research Campus celebrated its anniversary this year – a remarkable number of milestones have been achieved. The next important date for the Research Campus is the jury meeting on February 16, 2024.
