Ruhr University Bochum was founded in 1962 as part of the new university plan in Germany post WWII. Today, Ruhr University Bochum has approximately 34,000 students. The university offers more than 150 study programs, and is noted as one of the contenders for elite universities in academia and research quality. The Faculties of Medicine, Biology and Biotechnology, Engineering, (mechanical, civil, electrical) and Physics and Astronomy are deemed exceptional by most ranking panels.
Fully identified—the pathway of protons
In their catalytic center, hydrogenases manufacture molecular hydrogen (H2) from two protons and two electrons. They extract the protons required for this process from the surrounding water and transfer them – via a transport ...
Metallic nanocatalysts imitate the structure of enzymes
An international team of researchers has transferred certain structural characteristics of natural enzymes, which ensure particularly high catalytic activity, to metallic nanoparticles. The desired chemical reaction thus ...
External structure can affect the function of enzymes
A research team from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and from South Africa has analysed two enzymes with identical substrate binding pockets that nevertheless convert different substrates. In the process, it emerged that changes ...
The reasons for hemispheric dominance in the brain
The left and the right hemispheres specialise in different tasks. However, it has not yet been fully understood how one hemisphere assumes dominance over the other when it comes to controlling specific functions. Biopsychologists ...
Noble metal-free catalyst system as active as platinum
Industry uses platinum alloys as catalysts for oxygen reduction, essential in fuel cells and metal-air batteries, among other applications. Expensive and rare, that metal imposes tight restrictions on manufacture. Researchers ...
More rules for the intelligent household
While a mobile phone or PC is traditionally controlled by only one user, many players come together in a networked household, some of whom even want to control devices simultaneously. Researchers from the Horst Görtz Institute ...
What sleeps under the forest
A largely unknown terrain begins not so far below the surface of the forest floor. While the processes in the top 30 centimetres of the soil are well known, deeper areas of the soil are the focus of a research group led by ...
The interactions of chemical mirror images
Chemists from Ruhr-Universität Bochum are hoping to find out how strongly the mirror-image chemical molecules – called chiral compounds – interact with their interaction partners. They are concentrating on halogen bonds ...
The many structures of the light-active biomolecules
How the light-sensitive part of the biomolecule phytochrome changes from a light-adapted state to a dark-adapted state has been investigated by researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and Philipps-Universität Marburg. So ...
New insights into the structure of a killer protein
Researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the University of Tübingen have gained new insights into the structure of the killer protein Bax. The protein induces programmed cell death, the method by which the body disposes ...