Research projects in human medicine

The numerous research projects at SFU MED have led to an increase in the number and quality of publications by the end of 2024.

It should be emphasised at this point that cardiovascular and pulmonological research (cardiology, cardiac, thoracic and vascular surgery, pulmonology) has produced around 30% of all publications at SFU MED since 2015.

The majority of cardiological research is carried out by the 3rd Department of Medicine at the Ottakring Clinic, which is also a partner of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute (LBI) for Cardiovascular Research. The focus is on research into biomarkers as predictors of the clinical course of cardiovascular diseases or for differential diagnostic purposes. Numerous high-calibre publications can be attributed to this research focus, which has existed since the founding of the Faculty of Medicine.

Thanks to the cooperation agreement between the SFU and the LBI for Lung Health, pulmonological research at the Faculty of Medicine has not only acquired far-reaching epidemiological questions on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD – LEAD study), but can also boast a significant increase in scientific publications. The cooperation with the LBI for Lung Health has led to intensive collaboration with Maastricht University. As part of this cooperation, students at SFU MED are able to complete a PhD programme externally. We have already been able to congratulate the first graduate on her successful PhD.

In recent years, the Faculty of Medicine has particularly focussed on the topic of prevention research. In addition to prevention research (‘Healthy Aging’), other research focuses include ‘Personalised Medicine’, ‘Molecular Medicine’, ‘Biomarker Research’ and ‘Research into Rare Diseases’. In scientific cooperation with WIGEV, ‘prevention research’ is also one of the focal points of future research activities alongside ‘outcome research’ and ‘registry research’.

Since the beginning of 2024, work has been underway on three projects that have received funding from the SFU MED Research Promotion Fund: biomarker research into cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, research into rare causes of heart failure (amyloidosis, sarcoidosis in the ICCI project) and the BARIBIOMA project (bariatric surgery). Further priority projects, e.g. in oncology, are being planned.

A particular example of cross-faculty research is the joint research projects of specialist centres with the Institute of Psychosomatics at SFU MED, which researches psychosomatic illnesses in various medical disciplines and is particularly dedicated to disorder and treatment research, deals with ethical issues and modern settings, and also uses digital media in patient care.

The establishment of a Medical Research Centre (MFZ) for clinical research and the expansion of laboratory research will create an optimal situation for the further development of clinical, applied (translational) and basic research at SFU MED by the end of 2025.

Further Details are on our German Website.