The Johns Hopkins University (JHU), America’s first research university, in Baltimore, Md., USA, and the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute HHI, a mobile and information technology development leader based in Berlin, Germany, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly research the innovative medical applications of integrated optical sensors: small, highly sensitive devices with disease-recognition capabilities.

Under the terms of this agreement — signed on June 19 at the 2012 BIO International Convention in Boston, Mass., USA — the two entities will study how the technology developed by HHI can be used in the detection, diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine researchers with clinical expertise in a variety of specialty areas, including oncology and infectious diseases, will collaborate with HHI’s scientists and engineers.

"Johns Hopkins is thrilled to partner with a proven global leader whose knowledge and experience matches our longstanding tradition of excellence in patient care and research," says Helen Montag, corporate relations director of The Johns Hopkins University. "This partnership will allow us to introduce an emerging technology into the medical field to advance care for patients around the globe."

"This collaboration will leverage both of our organizations’ best-in-class abilities to jointly develop new point-of-care clinical tools," says Frank Menzler, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute‘s senior director, USA. "We are very excited to fuse Fraunhofer HHI‘s sensor technologies with Johns Hopkins’ clinical experience."

The National Science Foundation has ranked JHU number one among U.S. academic institutions in total science, medical and engineering research and development spending for 32 consecutive years. To date, 36 Nobel Prize winners have been affiliated with JHU, and the university‘s research is among the most cited in the world.

About the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute
The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute is a world leader in the development of mobile and fixed broadband communication networks and multimedia systems. From photonic components and systems to fiber optic sensor systems and high speed hardware architectures, the Heinrich Hertz Institute works together with its international partners from research and industry on the infrastructures for the future Gigabit Society for the international market. At the same time Fraunhofer HHI also develops forward-looking applications for broadband networks with key research foci on 3D TV, 3D displays, HDTV, man-machine interaction through control by gesture, image signal processing and transmission, and use of interactive media.

About Johns Hopkins Medicine
Johns Hopkins Medicine unites the physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of the Johns Hopkins Health System. The mission of Johns Hopkins Medicine is to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, Johns Hopkins Medicine has provided international leadership in the education of physicians and medical scientists in biomedical research and in the application of medical knowledge to sustain health since The Johns Hopkins Hospital opened in 1889.

Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute is one of 80 institutions affiliated with Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Europe’s largest applied research organization, with an annual operating research budget of 2.5 billion U.S. dollars. The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute offers a broad range of research expertise, from optical communication networks, systems and components, to mobile broadband systems, electronic-imaging technologies and optical-sensor technologies.

Gudrun Quandel
Head of Corporate Communications
phone +49 30 31002-400
cell phone +49 171 199 53 34
email gudrun.quandel@hhi.fraunhofer.de

This release was published on openPR.