Max Delbrück Center MDC - Max-Delbrück-Centrum für molekulare Medizin in der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft

Our Research

Research at the Max Delbrück Center aims to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of health and disease, and translate those findings into medical practice.

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Data Science and Artificial Intelligence

Enabling multi-modal prediction from molecules to cohorts.

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Research Highlights

Our research teams publish around 450 specialist articles every year. Our research highlights can be found here, presented in a comprehensible format.

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Selection of research highlights
induced pluripotent stem cells in a pluripotency test

Research News & Events

3D molecular reconstruction of a lung tumor

Towards understanding tumors in 3D

Researchers in Nikolaus Rajewsky’s lab at Max Delbrück Center combined high-resolution, single-cell spatial technologies to map a tumor’s cellular neighborhoods in 3D and identify potential targets for personalized cancer therapy. They describe their findings in two separate papers in “Cell Systems.”
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Science

Gut microbiome reveals risk of organ rejection

A team of researchers in the lab of Dr. Nicola Wilck at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center in Berlin have found that changes in gut microbes can indicate that the body may reject a transplanted kidney. The study was published in the “American Journal of Transplantation.”
Peter M. Schlag
Institute & Campus

In memory of Professor Peter M. Schlag

The Max Delbrück Center mourns the loss of Professor Peter M. Schlag (1948–2025). He was a pioneer of cancer research and a passionate physician. Schlag worked as a group leader at our research center for more than two decades.
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Science

Unraveling cell polarity with the help of AI

Max Delbrück Center and Helmholtz Imaging scientists have developed open-source software that simplifies the study of cell polarity with fluorescence microscopy. Published in “Nature Communications,” the innovation may streamline research on many basic biological processes such as tissue repair.
Publikum
Science

Curious minds at UniStem Day 2025

Around 220 high school students from across Berlin came to the conference center of the Max Delbrück Center in Buch in mid-March with one topic on their minds: stem cell research. For the tenth time, the German Stem Cell Network (GSCN, stem cell research dialogue platform at BIH) hosted UniStem Day.
Somesh Sai
Institute & Campus

What are you reading, Mr Sai?

Somesh Sai is a postdoc in the Sander lab. He explores how islet beta cells adapt to metabolic stress at the single-cell level. As a Postdoc Representative, he loves to organize events like Postdoc lunches and After Hours. He recommends a Chinese author who gained global fame for his sci-fi novels.
Udo Heinemann
Science

Carl Hermann Medal awarded to Udo Heinemann

What does the 3D structure of protein look like? And what does this mean about its function? For decades, structural biologist Udo Heinemann has explored these questions at the Max Delbrück Center. Now, the German Society for Crystallography is honoring his life’s work.
Blutdruckmessgerät
Science

Inequality raises disease risk, especially for women

A study led by Tobias Pischon has found that low socioeconomic status raises the risk of cardiovascular disease in women more so than in men. The study in the "Journal of the American Heart Association" underlines the importance of gender-specific prevention.

All News & Events

Publications

Mucosal washes are useful for sampling intestinal mucus-associated microbiota despite low biomass

Gut Microbes

Epigenetic mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of cardiac rehabilitation. An overview from the working groups of "cellular and molecular biology of the heart" and "cardiac rehabilitation and cardiovascular prevention" of the Italian Society of …

Int J Cardiol

Assessing reliability and comparability of 4D flow CMR whole heart measurements using retrospective valve tracking: a single-vendor study in the Berlin Research Network

Magn Reson Imaging

Senescent syncytiotrophoblast secretion during early onset preeclampsia

Hypertension

All Publications