The Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) has inaugurated a new analysis platform that combines high-resolution 3D light microscopy, molecular analyses of the genome and proteome, and AI-supported evaluation methods.
Developed in collaboration with Roche Diagnostics, RoX Health, ZEISS, Bruker Daltonics, Hamilton Germany, and LIMAA Technologies, the platform has the potential to set a new standard for personalized diagnostics and treatment recommendations—fast and highly precise for patients. Potential applications include cancer, complex inflammatory diseases, and rare genetic disorders.
With the BIH Spatial Diagnostics Platform, we are setting a patient-centered milestone on the path toward quality-oriented, AI-supported rapid diagnostics. Through the collaboration and close integration of academia, university medicine, spin-offs, and established industry partners, a pioneering biotechnology cluster is being created that makes biomedical translation from the laboratory to the bedside a reality
Prof. Dr. Christopher Baum, Chairman of the BIH Board of Directors and Head of the Translational Research Unit at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.
“The opening of the BIH Spatial Diagnostics Platform is a milestone for a new standard of oncological care and a sign of hope for all patients,” says Dorothee Bär, Federal Minister for Research, Technology and Space. “Here, a direct bridge is being built from research to patient care, from which everyone benefits: patients through potentially much faster diagnoses within 24 hours, strong industry partners through the integration of the latest adaptive technologies, and Germany as a center of science and industry through ‘Innovation made in Germany.’ I congratulate everyone involved on this flagship project.”
“I am delighted that we have succeeded in launching such an innovative technology here in Berlin. It demonstrates what becomes possible when excellent science, university medicine, and strong industry partners join forces. At the BIH and Charité, state-of-the-art imaging, molecular diagnostics, and artificial intelligence are opening up new possibilities for more precise and individualized therapies. This can significantly improve care, especially for cancer and other complex diseases,” says Ina Czyborra, Senator for Science, Health, and Care of the State of Berlin. “This is something we in Berlin can be proud of: Here, cutting-edge research is translated into medical progress that benefits people. As a state, we want to continue promoting such innovations.”
Research translates into care – faster access to individualized therapy
The new BIH Spatial Diagnostics Platform will provide complex tissue information more quickly and lay the foundation for more precise diagnoses. This will enable more informed and timely treatment decisions in the future, improving the quality of care.
This can be illustrated by the example of cancer: the tumor is viewed holistically. Instead of analyzing individual characteristics such as genes, tissue, or proteins in isolation, the platform combines these data into a comprehensive picture. Artificial intelligence (AI) supports this process by identifying diagnostically relevant patterns in complex datasets. It thus complements and extends the expertise of physicians.
Within hours, the diagnostic platform can provide relevant data and a personalized treatment recommendation. This could, for example, enable more accurate predictions of disease progression in ovarian or prostate cancer and help optimize treatment for individual patients. Conventional methods can require one to three weeks for this process. Particularly in oncology, this can represent a significant time advantage.
At the same time, each newly evaluated patient case contributes to a learning infrastructure, enabling the continuous improvement of models. This can sustainably accelerate the path from research to clinical care.
The BIH Spatial Diagnostics Platform will be implemented in five phases from 2026 to 2029. The initial focus will be on establishing the project’s organizational, personnel, and technical foundations. The pilot phase, involving initial research projects, will begin in 2028. This will be followed by collaborative studies with pharmaceutical companies to facilitate the transition to translational and clinical applications.
BIH Spatial Diagnostics Platform combines the latest technologies for the first time
The idea for the BIH Spatial Diagnostics Platform emerged from early discussions between the BIH and RoX Health. It is a collaboration with leading industry partners in medical diagnostics and the life sciences.
The diverse technologies from Roche (genomics/SBX sequencing-by-expansion technology), ZEISS (microscopy), Bruker (proteomics), and Hamilton (automation) support different stages of the diagnostic value chain, demonstrating that the future of precision medicine is not determined by a single technology.
Starting with high-resolution 3D tissue analysis (ZEISS and LIMAA Technologies), the platform seamlessly integrates the latest high-performance sequencing technologies (Roche), spatial proteomics (Bruker), and automation systems (Hamilton). The combination of these technologies enables rapid, comprehensive, and tissue-sparing analysis of disease-related tissue changes and forms the basis for developing precise, personalized therapies.
LIMAA Technologies is a spin-off of Charité and BIH and was supported during its pre-founding phase by the BIH Digital Health Accelerator.
