Operating in the international growth markets for life sciences and medicine/medical engineering, since its foundation in 1987/1992 the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT has worked primarily as a technology developer and device manufacturer for customers from all over the world. As a founding member of the Fraunhofer Group for Life Sciences, which now comprises six institutes and one research establishment, the Fraunhofer IBMT cooperates closely with its industrial customers as well as public and private clients. The IBMT's strategy is focused on the areas of biomedical/medical engineering (especially non-invasive and minimally invasive as well as miniaturized technologies), biotechnology, implants, cryotechnology, biobanks and stem cell research. Trendsetting automated laboratory technologies, the development of mobile special laboratories (S3, GMP, GCLP, etc.), and information technologies for healthcare solutions round off the portfolio of the Fraunhofer IBMT. Decades of expertise in biotechnological and medical research and development fields also allows to solve a variety of purely technical tasks. This includes ultrasound-based level metering, special transducers for acoustic applications, but also microelectrodes and miniaturized manipulation systems as well as automated in vitro culture devices.

With a good balance between basic and applied research, the institute promotes the "lived" technology transfer in medicine and biotechnology, laboratory technology, food, chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and environmental technology as well as in other areas of industry and knowledge-intensive services. For many years, the Fraunhofer IBMT has been working in the field of stem cell research and is still the only institute of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft to obtain licences (No. 18, 19 and 44) of the Robert-Koch-Institut to import and use human embryonic stem cells for scientific purposes. In recent years this has been extended to the production and characterization/expansion of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). The institute is involved as part of a major European project in building an international iPS cell bank.

Core competences of the Fraunhofer IBMT are:

• Biomedical/medical engineering
• Molecular and cellular biotechnology
• Nano(bio)technology and molecular diagnostics/therapy
• Cryo(bio)technology from cryoprocedures to cryomicroscopy
• Stem cell research and cell differentiation
• Tissue engineering and development of new in vitro culture systems
• Neuroprosthetics and technical implant components
• Design and construction of small, medium-sized and large biobanks
• (Mobile) laboratory technologies, new concepts for wireless energy supply
• Medical and technical ultrasound applications
• Autonomous deep-sea systems and acoustic imaging
• Sensor manufacturing/microsystems technology
• Telemetric data and energy transmission
• Multi-local sensors connected by communications technology
• Health information systems/medical networks

www.ibmt.fraunhofer.de/en