In 1990, he took part in a symposium in Hannover, where he got the decisive inspiration to start work on what was to become a life-saving artificial liver, based on the model of the artificial kidney used in dialysis. It can ensure the survival of patients with acute liver failure until either a transplant can be arranged, or their own livers have had a chance to regenerate. For Tomorrow Today, Steffen Mitzner talks about how his career in research changed after the Fall of the Berlin Wall.