Young scientists have always been a priority to KIT vice president Detlef Löhe. As one of the main authors of the future concept for KIT as a research university in the Helmholtz Association, he also was a founding father for YIN. In regard of his retirement in 2016, YIN appointed Prof. Löhe as its first Honorary member.

The German Society for Materials Science (DGM) honored Dr. Christian Greiner for his excellent contributions to metallurgical research. Since 1956, the DGM bestows the award in remembrance of the former chairman Prof. Georg Masing to one of its younger members.

Tumors emit single circulating cells that can start metastasis in other body tissues. Early detection is very challenging, as there is only one circulation tumor cell to a billion blood cells. A group of scientists, including YIN member Dr. Dr. Michael Hirtz, have now developed a new method to capture and extract single target cells from large background populations.

The topic of mobile robotics successfully drew a large audience from different disciplines, generations and academic levels. Positive feedback from all sides showed that Prof. Metin Sitti, director of the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, transfered detailed expertise while still sketching the broad picture.

KIT Vice President and founding father of YIN, Prof. Detlef Löhe, explains the idea behind the Young Investigator Network. The YIN alumni - among them 18 professors - as well as the top-level research of current YIN members state its success. A few exemplary projects are presented in this issue.

Milled in steel, scales reduce wear due to friction up to 40 Percent. Dr. Christian Greiner and his junior research group have copied this concept from nature that is from ball pythons and sandfish. It works for dry contact areas between mobile parts in electro-mechanical systems – but only if no grease is used.

Who likes to learn more about woods growing naturally on screen or printed electronics fit to compost can now visit the KIT YouTube channel. In video portraits Jun.-Prof. Boris Neubert and BMBF group leader Dr. Gerardo Hernandez-Sosa present research on Visual Computing and Printed Electronics.

As Humboldt hosts, YIN members can get excellent researchers from abroad to join their teams or apply themselves to the Foundation. YIN in turn provides young group leaders from abroad with an international peer community and tailored continuing education.

For computers to recognize anatomical variances during clinical surgery, large amounts of annotated images are needed. Crowdsourcing has proven to be a highly accurate measure to build up a databank accordingly at low cost in an extremely short period of time. Dr. Stefanie Speidel was among the responsible scientists.

Sorting double-walled carbon nanotubes according to their outer wall electronic type - for that Katherine Moore from the junior research group of Benjamin Flavel has developed an easy method. To this the scientific journals ACS Nano und Advanced Materials publish articles.

Life Science meets Simulation and Nature Communications reports. Congratulation to Steffen Scholpp and Alexander Schug! They profited from the Young Investigator Network and together they achieved more.

Whether automotive transmissions or kitchen mixers – in many technical systems there are surfaces of mobile parts that grate against each other. The Emmy-Noether Group of Lars Pastewka now analyses what happens on a molecular level. KIT and the Fraunhofer IWM report.

DFG announces news funding for junior researchers, the Federal Minister of Education and Research plan to rework the law on temporary contracts in the German scientific system – is the voice of junior researchers finally heard?