Research areas
Research focus
- Health and (bio)medical law
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Data protection and data security law as special administrative law
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Legal framework and modalities of European and international data exchange
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Law of life sciences from the perspective of fundamental and human rights law
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Comparative law in the field of data protection law, medical law and the law of life sciences
The main objective of the research group is to analyze the legal framework of new medical technologies, research and treatment methods. In accordance with national, European and international normative bases, we develop standards in this regard in order to contribute to the further development of the legal framework. The legal standard in turn takes into account the interactions of new technologies in both development and application. The focus of analyses in the area of medical research and care is on addressing legal issues relating to genomics, stem cell research and therapies, cancer medicine, genome editing, biobanking and pediatrics.
To achieve this goal, our group conducts research in the areas of privacy law, medical law, and health law, with a strong focus on the international perspective and in a comparative and interdisciplinary manner. In particular, in the context of data protection, we analyze regulatory models and explore the legal requirements for data sharing in different models. Research projects are conducted in close collaboration with other faculties and in cooperation with non-university
Research Projects
CONTAGIO (Cohort Network To be Activated Globally In Outbreaks)
The resurgence of infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) presents a significant challenge. Observational cohorts play a crucial role in comprehending the natural history of diseases, including transmission routes, risk factors, and severe outcomes, thereby aiding in the design of intervention studies. The EU-funded CONTAGIO project brings together investigators from various regions to establish coordination mechanisms for rapid responses to the emergence or re-emergence of infectious diseases in LMICs.
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101137283
GHGA (The German Human Genome-Phenome Archive)
GHGA is part of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), which systematically indexes and connects research data across disciplines. By making previously fragmented data more accessible and reusable, the NFDI strengthens research, fosters collaboration, and supports innovation. While we focus on making human omics data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) and ensuring its secure use in research, we also collaborate with other (biomedical) NFDI consortia to establish shared standards and tools.
Model-Based AI: Physical Models and Deep Learning for Imaging and Cancer Treatment
The focus of the research project is on the concrete application in the treatment of cancer. An interdisciplinary team from the departments of computer science, mathematics, physics and medicine is analysing various issues in AI research, including the reliability of learning data, object recognition and the quality of data storage and evaluation.
https://www.carl-zeiss-stiftung.de/en/project-overview/detail/model-based-ai
Multi-dimensionAI: linking scales of information to improve care for patients with heart failure
The project team at the Mannheim and Heidelberg sites focuses on patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF).
As part of a clinical study, the findings are being used to allow patients to exercise in an exosuit for a limited period of time. Exosuits usually consist of a lightweight frame that is attached to the user's body. Together with sensors and motors, these can control movement and provide support. This is intended to increase their mobility. Lifestyle improvements are repeatedly assessed to detect effects that range from the molecular to the macroscopic level. These results, in turn, will be used to improve the AI system.
ITCC Hopp: International Data Integration Platform to prioritize drug development and access for children with cancer
The main aim of the ITCC Project is to address the lack of a suitable professional, comprehensive, and user-friendly platform for data visualization and sharing by establishing a platform to collate and integrate diverse molecular data from paediatric cancer. In all stages, patient representatives, as well as ethical and legal experts will be involved.
PRIVETDIS - Mentale Privatheit, Neurotechnologie und Behinderung
The PRIVETDIS collaborative project is part of the BMBF funding initiative “Guidelines for Funding Multinational Research Projects on Ethical, Legal, and Social Aspects of the Neurosciences within the Framework of ERA-NET NEURON.” The aim of this initiative is to identify ethical, philosophical, legal, and sociocultural issues related to neuroscience research; to establish a scientific foundation for informed societal and scientific discourse; to assess the opportunities and risks arising from technical and methodological advances; and to expand the general state of knowledge.
ILLUMINATION - Datenschutzgerechte Nutzung großer Sprachmodelle im Gesundheitswesen
In the “ILLUMINATION” project, researchers aim to develop a toolkit of technical methods and recommendations for the privacy-preserving use of large language models (LLMs) in the healthcare sector. To this end, the project team is leveraging innovative methods such as differential privacy, synthetic data, and private information retrieval to minimize privacy risks. The researchers are also evaluating the methods from human-centered, legal, and application-specific perspectives to identify conflicting goals between privacy, legal requirements, the predictive quality of LLMs, and computational effort.
MEDAL Medical Imaging AGI’s Last Exam
The project aims to bring together central clinical issues in medical imaging. Their processing by a medical imaging AGI could achieve performance levels that are comparable to or complement those of human experts and thus potentially have a practical impact on patients and caregivers. To this end, MEDAL will pool international expertise and multimodal data (medical images and optionally other patient information) and focus research more strongly on clinically significant challenges.
SynthImmune - Regulatory assessment of research and translation in SynthImmune
Project 7 of Synthimmune will develope technology for bottom-up synthetic immunology, establish a global implementation frame work for bottom-up synthetic immunology and develop an ethics and communication framework for bottom-up synthetic immunology.
The specific aims of P7 Synthimmune are setting the stage for understanding terminology and professional practice, assessing risks and benefits to help launch early clinical trial and paving the way for societal transformation.
https://synthimmune.de/projects/
Completed Projects
Individualising & democratizing cancer patient care via Artificial Intelligence (VolkswagenStiftung)
A key promise of personalized medicine is that once realised, all citizens - irrespective of whether they are in cities or in rural areas - will be able to equally benefit from state-of-the-art individualized health care. The project will employ a transdisciplinary approach driven by AI to precision medicine for prostate cancer in a regionally oriented model project targeting 8% of the German population, which in the future may be expanded inter-regionally or internationally. This will build on machine learning methods, to guide targeted treatment decisions based on deep learning classifiers that integrate longitudinally observed clinical measurements with multi-omic data. Altogether, the project represents a step towards the sharing of human, physical, and intellectual resources in healthcare consistent with social values and individuals' reasonable expectations and the concepts of fairness, inclusivity and equality. It will additionally foster the further development of AI as a technological framework for public health governance.
Datenschutzrechtliches Reallabor für eine Datentreuhand in der Netzwerkmedizin – TrustDNA (BMBF)
The aim of the project is to contribute to the rule-based availability of data from network medicine for research-based companies and public research institutions. The focus is on the clarification of the data protection legal design of various data trust models. The processes are to be designed in such a way that patients can be involved in research projects as data providers in an active role. In addition, the connection to national and European initiatives is strived for.
FAIR Data Spaces - Aufbau eines gemeinsamen Cloud-basierten Datenraums für Wirtschaft und Wissenschaft (BMBF)
Project FAIR Data Spaces provides a common, cloud-based data space for industry and research in compliance with FAIR Principles. The project establishes a roadmap for the collaboration between the European Gaia-X federated and secure data infrastructure and the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), clarifies the ethical and legal framework for data exchange between research and industry, establishes a common technical foundation and demonstrates the use of Gaia- X technology for providing and using research data along the FAIR Principles in different fields of science and business sectors. FAIR Data Spaces demonstrators show real use cases in Biology, Geosciences, Health and Data Science.
EUCANCan: European-Canadian Cancer Network
EUCANCan is a European-Canadian project that aims to create a federated infrastructure for the standardized analysis, management, and sharing of genomic cancer data. Its goal is to strengthen personalized medicine in oncology through improved collaboration and data use. To achieve this, the project develops an integrated cultural, technological, and legal framework across multiple countries and institutions. The initiative seeks to enhance cancer research and serve as a model for international cooperation in personalized medicine.
