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When the Institute of Nano- and Biotechnologies (INB) was founded at FH Aachen in 2007, one topic was at the center of attention: interfaces. It has always been about interfaces between nanotechnology and biotechnology as key technologies of the 21st century, but also about interfaces between generations of researchers and between scientific institutions all around the world. Professor Dr Michael J. Schöning, Director of the INB, recently spent a month as a guest professor at Waseda University in Japan, and the INB team intends to intensify its joint research with colleagues from Waseda University in the future.

Waseda University is one of Japan's leading private universities. It was founded in 1882 and its more than 600,000 graduates include several Japanese prime ministers. In the early years, the focus was on social sciences, however, Waseda University now also has an excellent reputation in natural sciences and engineering. In 2014, Waseda University was chosen for the prestigious Top Global University Program (TGU Program), an initiative led by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to elevate the teaching and research of selected universities to top-tier global status. In this program, Waseda launched the Waseda Goes Global to attract the world’s leading scientists and scholars for collaborative research and educational activities, with an eye to building an internationally-connected research community.

Professor Schöning has been invited to Waseda University multiple times under this program, where he has worked closely with the researchers and students of Waseda University. Professor Dr Takayuki Homma is Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Research at Waseda University and, as a professor in the Department of Applied Chemistry, he is the first point of contact for the cooperation with the INB. Professor Schöning explains: "Prof Homma and I have been in contact for more than 15 years. The focus of our Japanese colleagues is in the field of physical chemistry. This includes the development of novel materials and nanocomposites for the development of fuel cells and devices as well as spectroscopic analysis techniques." The research activities of the two working groups are designed in a complementary manner, which is precisely where the great potential of the collaboration lies: "We are united by a common basic idea."

For some time now, the two universities have been conducting a joint research project with the aim of gaining a better understanding of the degradation behavior of spores and germs during the aseptic filling process. Hydrogen peroxide is typically used to kill possible germs when filling beverage packaging. The INB can boast many years of expertise in this area, which allows the monitoring of this process using combined gas and biosensor technology, and validating the successful aseptic process. At the same time, however, there is little information on the temporal degradation behavior of spores. The Raman spectroscopy technique established at the Department of Applied Chemistry at Waseda University was able to make a decisive contribution to the fundamental understanding of how the mechanism works. "Together with our Japanese colleagues, we have adapted the process in such a way as to capture individual spores and observe their degradation in a time-resolved manner," says Professor Schöning. The research project has already resulted in two joint publications.

Here is where Zhengke Tu comes into play. She has been at Campus Jülich since November 2023 and will be conducting research at the INB for altogether three months. Her doctoral project deals with the further development of Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS). The term spectroscopy refers to various processes in which material properties are analyzed by exposing the substances to be examined to radiation - in this case laser beams. In order to achieve high detection sensitivities, i.e. ideally to be able to detect a few molecules, the signals must be amplified accordingly and the detection unit improved. "The project falls within the area of application-oriented basic research," says Professor Schöning, "we are jointly researching different measurement set-ups and potential areas of application, with the coupling of receptor molecules to gold or virus nanoparticles, for example, being an exciting spectrum of subjects."

During his stay at Waseda University, Prof Schöning developed joint future research strategies together with Professor Dr Homma and Associate Professor Dr Masahiro Kunimoto, while also seizing the opportunity to take part in the academic life of the laboratory. "I held seminars and lectures, exchanged ideas intensively with students and doctoral candidates, discussed experiments, and worked out joint solutions." In the process, the young researchers demonstrated extraordinary motivation and very good technical and methodological knowledge. Professor Homma attaches great importance to his team being familiar with current scientific approaches and international state-of-the-art technology.

In addition to the cooperation with Waseda University, the INB also works closely with Tohoku University, which is located in Sendai. Michael Schöning can now look back on more than 30 research stays in Japan - "all in all, I have spent more than one year of my life in this country," he says. Stays in other countries provide interesting impressions, not only in terms of culture and everyday life, but also with regard to the work on location and the experimental approaches. "Everything is organized excellently and timed precisely, reliability and commitment are highly significant," he reports.