MDC Berlin

How the adrenal gland self-regulates and what are the key-drivers for tumorigenesis remain elusive. For their work on a cell atlas of this endocrine gland, MDC doctoral student Ali Kerim Secener and Barbara Altieri from the University Hospital of Würzburg have received the 55th Schoeller-Junkmann-Prize.

In the Fly Cell Atlas, a project initiated by a team of scientists including Robert Zinzen, researchers are mapping in detail the cells of the fly Drosophila. They have now presented a comprehensive single-cell atlas of the animal, consisting of more than 250 cell types, in the journal Science.

In a study published in Cell, MDC researchers show how a cell is able to process hundreds of signals simultaneously. Andreas Bock and his colleagues believe their findings will open up a whole new field of research in cell biology.

The Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine and the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and will cooperate in the field of medical imaging in the future. A cooperation agreement was signed on Friday, 11 March 2022 at the Research Campus in Berlin-Buch.

Mutations that lead to muscle atrophy can be repaired with the gene editor CRISPR-Cas9. A team led by ECRC researcher Helena Escobar has now introduced the tool into human muscle stem cells for the first time using mRNA, thus discovering a method suitable for therapeutic applications.

To prevent the extinction of the northern white rhino, the international consortium BioRescue is attempting to create artificial egg cells from stem cells. A team led by MDC’s Sebastian Diecke and Micha Drukker of Leiden University has now revealed in Scientific Reports that they are one step closer to achieving this goal.

The question of how the Covid virus takes over host cells and suppresses the body's defences has been the subject of much debate. Now a research team led by Marina Chekulaeva at the MDC has pinpointed the crucial mechanism involved. Their results have been published in the journal “RNA”.

Using pioneering methods of proteome analysis, an interdisciplinary team of Berlin researchers was able to decode a previously unknown mechanism which can cause bone marrow cancer to relapse. The teams led by Jan Krönke and Philipp Mertins report their results in “Nature Communications”.