MDC Berlin

A three-dimensional computer model enables scientists to quickly determine which genes are active in which cells, and their precise location within an organ. A team led by Nikolaus Rajewsky, Berlin, and Nir Friedman, Jerusalem, has published the new method and their insights gained from this in Nature.

Two scientists from MDC have been named Highly Cited Researchers: Sofia Forslund and Nikolaus Rajewsky.

New insights into preventing herpes infections have been published in Nature Communications. Researchers from the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB) at the MDC used single-cell RNA sequencing to better understand the viral infections.

Ana Pombo wants to understand the rules that govern our genome. This quest has led her to discover how important our genetic architecture is for the functioning of life. In the long term, she hopes her research will help understand diseases with complex origin such as autism and epilepsy.

The MDC is committed to maintaining respectful interactions at the research center and is taking decisive action to prevent and address bullying, discrimination, and sexual harassment. Since early 2019 an Anti-Harassment Task Force, consisting of a broad cross-section of stakeholders, has been preparing guidelines for this very purpose. The Board of Directors has declared its support for the proposed guidelines.

When the adrenal gland produces too much aldosterone, this often leads to high blood pressure and kidney damage (hyperaldosteronism). It has only recently emerged that several patients harbor a mutation in the gene for the ClC-2 chloride channel. Researchers led by Professor Thomas Jentsch have now been able to show for the first time how the altered channels cause the disease. Their results are reported in the journal Nature Communications.

Katrina Meyer has won the 2019 KlarText Prize for Science Communication with an article in german entitled “Verirrte Proteine.” The article provides a lay summary of Meyer’s PhD thesis and explains the work she carried out in Professor Matthias Selbach’s research group at the MDC.

Professor Jens Reich, one of the best-known civil rights activists in the former East Germany, is a molecular biologist, physician, bioethicist, and – still to this day – a formative researcher and ombudsman at the MDC. On October 2 he was awarded the Federal Republic of Germany’s Order of Merit.

Elaine Fuchs, who heads the Mammalian Cell Biology and Development Lab at The Rockefeller University, will give a lecture at MDC on Oct. 1 about finding ways to target the skin cancer stem cells that resist treatment and often lead to relapses.

Professor Patrick Cramer, who chairs the MDC’s Scientific Advisory Board and sits on its Supervisory Board, has received the Ernst Schering Prize for his pioneering research in biochemistry.

Exactly 30 years after the founding of the Neues Forum, Jens Reich has called upon researchers to once again get involved in the political discourse. The full text of his speech can be found below. Reich’s speech and a concert by Wolf and Pamela Biermann kicked off a new event series, entitled “Breaking Boundaries,” at MDC Berlin-Mitte/BIMSB.

Big data and machine learning were the focus of this year’s Berlin Summer Meeting, which will was hold in September at the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB). International speakers explored the opportunities and limits of artificial intelligence.

Researchers from more than 20 countries are gathering in Berlin to share their experiences working with “non-model organisms”, such as pythons, Tasmanian devils and naked mole rats.

A new research group led by Dr. Nicola Wilck is investigating the influence of the gut microbiome on high blood pressure. The European Research Council (ERC) is funding the project with an ERC Starting Grant of €1.5 million over five years.

Learning from naked mole-rats is key to Jane Reznick’s research into new therapies for heart disease and strokes. She has now been awarded an ERC Starting Grant, which will help her to start her own group and fund her work to the tune of €1.55 million over five years.

As Karl Max Einhäupl steps down as Chairman of the Charité’s Executive Board, Thomas Sommer, interim Scientific Director of the MDC, honors Einhäupl’s achievements and applauds him for the excellent and equitable collaboration. Sommer wishes the Charité’s new head, Heyo Kroemer, the very best and much success in his new position.

Researchers at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) have developed a method enabling the complete sequence of messenger RNA molecules including their unique ends, which are called poly(A) tails.

Modern light microscopic techniques provide extremely detailed insights into organs, but the terabytes of data they produce are usually nearly impossible to process. New software, developed by a team led by MDC scientist Dr. Stephan Preibisch and now presented in Nature Methods, is helping researchers make sense of these reams of data.

What does a protein forming the cell’s nuclear envelope have to do with a dangerous heart condition? Aided by stem cell experiments, a team of researchers from Stanford University and the MDC recently answered this question.