The Accelerator Ring Doesn’t Fit in the LabNew imaging procedure shows immune system at work

5 February 2026, by Grüner/Red.

Photo: University of Hamburg / Feuerböther

The University of Hamburg is the scientific home to over 6,200 researchers. Every 2 weeks, we offer a glimpse into their work in the Hamburger Abendblatt. In this issue, Prof. Dr. Florian Grüner explains how we can follow the dynamics of T-cells in real time.

In biomedical basic research, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. For example, we would like to better understand how immune cells in so-called immune-mediated diseases, such as Crohn’s disease, behave. Many people suffer from this chronic inflammatory intestinal disease, involving 4 different types of T-cells, or white blood cells that comprise part of our immune system. Using an innovative imaging procedure that we’ve developed, we can now follow the dynamics of the T-cells in real time, a huge breakthrough in this field.

Seeking the right real-life problem

To be precise, we developed the method before we knew what we wanted to or could study with it. In basic research in physics, we often have the situation for which we might have an academically interesting solution but not necessarily the problem it solves, meaning from real life. When I was still working on laser-based X-ray sources at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, we found a solution for creating X-rays with relatively small devices, but these rays were needle-jet shaped. So we went on the search for a suitable problem in medicine to find where these needle-jet-shaped X-rays were needed. We found X-ray fluorescence imaging, because this requires these kinds of finely-bundled X-rays.

In the meantime, my colleagues at the CFEL in Science City Hamburg Bahrenfeld and I have conducted several measurements at DESY, for example, tracing immune cells mentioned above.

Concretely, we would like to find out in the project mentioned above how 4 immune cell types behave to see why in some cases the immune system does not wind down its reaction to infection. Another new application that we want to develop in the collaborative research center with groups from UKE is the tracing of antibodies, which should ultimately allow us to better observe the immune system in action.

A synchrotron as big as 2 refrigerators 

I am fascinated by the fact that we can develop an application, that is, something practical, in biomedical research based on basic research in physics. Our mathematical models and computer simulations are all fairly abstract, but important for consistently improving our detection limits. And what we can then do with all of that in real life is anything but abstract; we can provide new insight into biomedical research. Our cooperation is therefore always interdisciplinary: we combine expertise in physics, the nanosciences, chemistry, biology, and medicine.

Measurements using huge synchrotron plants, such as DESY’s PETRA III, are vital for developing methods, but access to X-ray sources in demand all over the world is, due to availability, very limited. Furthermore, it would be really helpful in medical research if we had an imaging procedure in an on-site lab, and above all in many research institutes all over the world, to be able to use new imaging methods much more widely.

This is why we and our partners have now developed a lab system with which we can take measurements with the quality of those made at the synchrotron, albeit with markedly longer measuring times. But in cooperation with Siemens Healthineers, we have now also cleared this final hurdle and were recently able to show that using our device, which is about the size of 2 refrigerators, we can take measurements as quickly as we can at DESY. This applies only to our special imaging methods and not generally. Now the goal is to get our prototype ready for application.