IfM Berlin
Institute for Microcirculation, Berlin
The Institute for Microcirculation (IfM) in Berlin is a specialist research institute dedicated to the physiology of small blood vessels — the capillaries, arterioles, and venules that make up the microcirculatory system. It is BEMER's primary scientific research partner and the institution most responsible for the evidence base underlying BEMER's patented electromagnetic signal.
What the IfM studies
The microcirculatory system — the network of vessels smaller than 100 micrometres in diameter — is where the final exchange of oxygen, nutrients, and metabolic waste occurs between the bloodstream and individual cells. Despite being the most critical part of the circulatory system for cellular health, microcirculation is also the least accessible to clinical intervention.
The IfM's work focuses on understanding the mechanisms that govern microcirculatory flow — particularly vasomotion, the rhythmic contraction and relaxation of vessel walls that actively drives blood through the microvascular network. Vasomotion cannot be measured by standard blood pressure equipment or pulse oximetry; it requires direct intravital microscopy.
Diminished or absent vasomotion is now understood to be a key mechanism underlying the tissue damage seen in diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic wounds, and age-related functional decline.
The BEMER signal
Working with BEMER Group over more than two decades, the IfM developed the specific electromagnetic waveform — its shape, frequency, and intensity — that is most effective at stimulating vasomotion in compromised microvascular tissue. This signal is patented. It is the key differentiator between BEMER and generic pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) devices, which do not target vasomotion and have not undergone equivalent research.
Hear from the researcher
Dr Rainer Klopp — Institute for Microcirculation, Berlin
Why this matters for patients
The IfM partnership gives BEMER something most medical devices lack: a deeply understood, peer-reviewed mechanism of action. It is not enough to show that patients improve — science requires understanding why. The IfM's work established that mechanism: BEMER improves health outcomes because it restores vasomotion, which restores microcirculatory flow, which restores oxygen and nutrient delivery to cells.
This mechanistic understanding is also what allowed BEMER to obtain Class IIa medical device registration in Europe — regulators require not just clinical outcome data, but a plausible and validated mechanism. The IfM's research provided exactly that.
Intravital microscopy
The IfM uses intravital microscopy to directly observe blood flow in living capillaries — typically in thin tissue preparations (such as the hamster cheek pouch or rat cremaster muscle) that allow a microscope to image individual capillaries in a living, physiologically intact animal.
This technique allows direct measurement of capillary blood flow velocity, red blood cell transit time, and vessel diameter — providing objective, quantitative data on microcirculatory function before and after BEMER application. The 29% flow improvement statistic cited in BEMER research comes from exactly this kind of direct measurement, not from subjective patient reporting.
Get Well Now is an independent BEMER SA agent. The IfM Berlin is an independent scientific institution. We summarise their publicly available research here for information purposes. For the primary research literature, search PubMed for "vasomotion PEMF" or "BEMER microcirculation".