The jury, consisting of BioPark Managing Director Dr Thomas Diefenthal, patent attorney Dr Florian Rückerl, Prof. em. Dr Bernhard Weber from the University of Regensburg and Prof. Dr Karsten Weber from OTH Regensburg, once again had a difficult task in selecting this year's winners from among the high-quality applications. The decisive criteria were innovative strength and the application and start-up potential of the work.
Jessica Kloiber received a BioPark Innovation Award 2025 for her research work on the development of an electropolishing process for magnesium (Mg)-based medical implants. These offer the enormous advantage of dissolving over time after being used in the human body, which makes a second operation to remove them unnecessary. However, they have only been used to a limited extent so far, as the inhomogeneous degradation process in the body carries the risk of early implant failure.
In Prof. Dr. Helga Hornberger's biomaterials laboratory at the Regensburg Centre of Biomedical Engineering (RCBE) at OTH Regensburg, Jessica Kloiber was able to develop a reproducible electropolishing process for Mg materials as part of her cooperative doctorate with the University of Regensburg, which significantly optimised corrosion behaviour. The process is biocompatible and improves the sterilisation of Mg implants by reducing germ adhesion. Scientific cooperation with a medical technology company is currently being initiated for further testing on a specific implant geometry.
Another BioPark Innovation Award 2025 went to Dr Konstantin Scholz and Dr Florian Pielnhofer for identifying samarium salts as potential novel active ingredients for caries prevention. Caries is the most common disease worldwide and is strongly influenced by bacterial biofilm and poor oral hygiene. An estimated two billion people worldwide are affected – despite the widespread availability of oral hygiene products – demonstrating the particularly high need for novel therapeutics.
Dr Scholz (Clinic for Conservative Dentistry and Periodontology, Freiburg, and Polyclinic for Conservative Dentistry and Periodontology, Regensburg) and Dr Pielnhofer (Institute for Inorganic Chemistry, University of Regensburg) were able to demonstrate for the first time in their research that samarium salts have beneficial properties that make them suitable for use as cariostatic agents. Laboratory tests demonstrated that samarium from administered salts can accumulate on human dentine and enamel and that the substances have antibacterial effects on oral bacteria. The enrichment also works in the presence of a smear layer and a so-called saliva pellicle, a natural, thin protective layer of saliva proteins on the tooth enamel that influences the effect of many cariostatic agents. Its use in the treatment and prevention of root caries and in cosmetics is currently being investigated, which is a prerequisite for a possible spin-off.
