BM&T has originally been founded, already Nov. 1st, 1985, for the production and distribution of electronic devices and data analysis software for electrophysiological research which have been developed by the founders of BM&T, Heimo Wissing and Hans Albert Braun, then research fellows at the Institute of Physiology at Philipps University of Marburg.
The software and electronic devices were specifically designed for extracellular action potential recordings and impulse pattern analysis of sensory nerve fibres and hypothalamic neurons. Main products were for the application of exactly controlled temperature stimuli as well as for signal amplification and spike-sorting, including software for impulse pattern analysis.
These custom-made devices provided the methodological basis for successful research at different universities as published, also by the Marburg group, in partly high ranking journal like “Nature”, e.g.: Braun HA, Wissing H, Schäfer K, Hirsch MC (1994): Oscillation and noise determine signal transduction in shark multimodal sensory cells. Nature 367: 270-273.
More papers and information can be found on the web-page of the Marburg Neurodynamics group and also can be downloaded from Research Gate.
After several years of only minor activities the company has been reactivated in 2013 with the reprogramming of the Virtual Physiology laboratories mainly by the Marburg Office. The Virtual Physiology labs have originally been developed in the mid-nineties at the Marburg Neurodynamics group but then have been distributed by Thieme Publishers (Stuttgart-New York). There were no updates for almost 20 years so that the developers could get the rights back. One of them, Hans Braun, started reprogramming the virtual laboratories on own costs and responsibility via his Marburg Office of BM&T with support of diverse colleagues, including the editors of the previous versions and other experts in physiology/pharmacology and computationally relevant fields.
In between there are more than ten thousand downloads of fully functioning Demo Versions of the new Virtual Physiology labs and more than 300 labs are officially used in regular students’ courses at more than 100 Universities worldwide. This means that thousands of students every year do these classical experiments in life science education without killing rats or frogs.