Almost one year after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Germany is in its third lockdown, having emerged as an extension and tightening of the lockdown light measures introduced in November 2020. Many wonder about the efficacy and duration of the current stricter measures and we use here a simple mathematical model to illustrate that for the successful control of the pandemic it is important that as many people as possible reduce their contacts. To this end a simple mathematical model is used, assuming that only part of the population adheres to specified contact restrictions.

The research work of Maria Barbarossa and Jan Fuhrmann from the JSC of Forschungszentrum Jülich has been picked up by some media in the last few days and we would like to give you a short overview of the coverage.

In order to make better use of the amount of data generated by high-energy experiments, scientists at FIAS have developed a new Deep Learning (DL) analysis method. The models based on the PointNet architecture enable a fast online analysis of collision events at event rates of several million collisions per second. For this purpose, the determination of the centrality of heavy ion collisions at the Compressed Baryonic Matter Experiment (CBM) of the FAIR facility, which is currently under construction at the GSI Helmoltzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, was exemplarily investigated.

Are the current COVID measures slowing down the pandemic in Germany? A collaboration of researchers from FIAS and the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) used mathematical models to calculate possible scenarios for the further course of the pandemic

The Scientific Advisory Board is one of the basic pillars of the FIAS. Its high-profile members from all over the world meet every 3 years to evaluate and advise the FIAS in its scientific orientation. Normally this evaluation is integrated into our Fellow Conference, which due to the Corona Pandemic 2020 has to be held online for the first time and in two phases.

The astrophysicist Prof. Dr. Luciano Rezzolla will support the board of the FIAS in the future.

The Chairman of the FIAS Board of Trustees, Prof. Dr. Rudolf Steinberg, has been awarded the Federal Cross of Merit with Ribbon. During a ceremony he was presented with the award by Volker Bouffier, the Prime Minister of the State of Hesse.

Among all forces of nature, earthquakes are considered one of the most devastating threats. They cause enormous human and structural losses worldwide. Even though analysis and measurement methods have been further developed over the past decades, reliable predictions are still not possible today. Although many indications of an increased earthquake probability are known, they do not allow an exact prediction of the location and time of catastrophic earthquakes. Over the next four years, the research group at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS), headed by Dr. Nishtha Srivastava will be funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BmBF) with more than 1.6 million euros as part of the "Promotion of female AI junior scientists" program. Nishtha Srivastava will use methods of artificial intelligence (AI), the application of which in the geosciences, especially in seismology, is still in an early stage of research, to expand our understanding of the origin of earthquakes and improve predictions.

The search for a suitable vaccine is a central research area in the fight against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. An important step towards this is to understand how the virus penetrates the cells. The protein responsible for this is the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein on the virus surface which allows the virus to enter the host cell.

Thomas Sokolowski joined the FIAS in April 2020 as part of the LOEWE focus CMMS. In an interview he explains how he uses stochastic methods and fundamental physical laws to describe complicated biochemical processes on the cell and tissue level efficiently and as accurately as possible.

Prof. Dr. Enrico Schleiff, Senior Fellow and Chairman of the Board of the FIAS was elected President of the Goethe University by the extended Senate on Wednesday (July 8). The term of office is six years and will begin on January 1, 2021, following his appointment by the University Council. The former Vice President and Professor of Molecular Cell Biology of Plants at Goethe University was elected by an absolute majority of 18 votes out of the 34 members of the Senate.

The FAIR and GSI high-performance computing center developed in cooperation with FIAS is particularly energy-efficient thanks to its special cooling system. This makes it the first computer center to be awarded the Federal Government's eco-label. With the Green IT Cube, one of the most powerful scientific computing centers in the world was built at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt. The novel cooling technology was developed by FIAS board members Volker Lindenstruth and Horst Stöcker.

Prof. Thomas Lippert, expert for high-performance and quantum computing, is a new Senior Fellow at FIAS. The physicist and computer scientist will also occupy the newly created professorship for "Modular Supercomputing and Quantum Computing" at the Institute for Computer Science at Goethe University Frankfurt from August 1, 2020.

Since May, Maria Barbarossa has been a FIAS Fellow and research group leader within Loewe's focus area CMMS (Center for Multiscale Modeling in Life Sciences). Her work is dedicated to the development of mathematical models and methods for understanding multiscale processes in immunology and the dynamics of epidemics. In this interview, she talks about her career and her current research on the COVID-19 epidemic.

Within the new LOEWE focus "Center for Multiscale Modeling in Life Sciences" (CMMS), the FIAS was able to recruit three new group leaders as Fellows.

The Romanian Academy of Sciences (Academia Română) has appointed Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Horst Stöcker as honorary member in recognition of his work on hot, dense elementary matter in heavy ion research and astrophysics, as well as his many years of commitment to the international scientific community. He is thus one of 91 foreign scientists who are entitled to bear this title.

Using a new model, scientists from the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) and Goethe University can explain the development of binocular vision, which is the joint vision of the right and left eye. In doing so, they show how amblyopic visual impairment can occur.

In connection with the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), the Goethe University provides information on mobility and health care. We refer to recommendations of the Robert Koch Institute and the Federal Foreign Office.

​In October 2019, during the Sino-German Conference for Science, Technology, Innovation and Cooperation in Berlin, representatives of Xidian University and FIAS signed the founding documents of the XF-IJRC.