[Prevention of Head and Brain Injuries in Football: Is there a Need to Ban Headings?] / Prävention von Gehirnerschütterungen im Juniorenfußball ­ Ist eine Abschaffung des Kopfballspiels notwendig?

Football, the most popular sports worldwide, is associated with a high number of injuries. Head and brain injuries in football are less frequent, but may result in severe long-term damage. The mechanisms of these injuries in football are multifactorial, and the ball is rarely the main cause of a head injury. Short-term, medium-term and long-term consequences of headings in football are insufficiently examined, and there are hardly any case reports about severe episodes. Heading has been banned in US junior football since November 2015, which is understandable considering the higher risk for head injuries in popular American sports such as ice hockey or American football and people's fear associated with this risk. However, the decision to ban heading in football is not based on scientific results, and different experiences have been made in European football. Therefore, this decision should not simply be transferred to Europe. In fact, other injury prevention strategies for head injuries in junior football are necessary, such as the adaptation of ball sizes, which has already been implemented. It is not necessary to change match rules in the form of a general ban on heading in football. Further scientific studies are needed for standardisation in football worldwide.

Use of flow-cytometric analysis to optimize cell banking strategies for production of biopharmaceuticals from mammalian cells.

Production of biopharmaceuticals from mammalian cells requires generation of master, working and post-production cell banks of high quality under GMP conditions. An optimal cryopreservation strategy is needed for each new production cell line, particularly with regard to establishing production processes that are completely devoid of serum or even any animal components and to ensuring robust thaw performance for reliable production. Here, we describe a novel strategy employing flow-cytometric (FC) analysis of Annexin V-stained cells for high-throughput characterization of cell banks. Our data show that this method enables predictive evaluation of a cryopreservation strategy as early as 6h after thawing of cells. Furthermore, a broad study is presented characterizing various factors that may influence the quality of serum-free production cell banks from NSO and CHO cell lines. These results demonstrate how FC-based analysis can be used for development of future state-of-the-art cryopreservation strategies.