As in the previous year (May 2007), where Fraunhofer IZM staff won first prize and 4000 Euro in the "Development Stage” for their business plan marketing the world’s smallest piezoelectric micromembrane pump, the institute has again succeeded at the Munich Business Plan Competition. Yet again, a team headed by Dr. Martin Richter carried off one of the hotly contested prizes.

The Fraunhofer IZM researchers Tonio Haas and Martin Bucher were awarded a first prize of 500 euros in the "Idea Stage" (business plan for “MEGACELL”) in the category "Research Centers and Other Universities”. The organizers, jurors and investors responded positively to Fraunhofer IZM’s participation in the competition with new technologies and ideas.

MEGACELL is a planned Fraunhofer bioprocess engineering spin-off and intends to manufacture and run a device that rapidly and cost-efficiently detaches a cell from its carrier substrate, while ensuring the cell is damaged as little as possible in the process.  The device is to replace trypsinization as standard technique. The basic idea of the detaching process commended by the jury is to mechanically detach the cells using high-frequency ultrasound, thereby excluding the involvement of enzymes.