MDC Berlin

Researchers from three continents have produced a first extensive draft of a cell atlas of the human heart to understand how this vital organ functions and to shed light on what goes wrong in cardiovascular disease. As the team reports in Nature, it reveals a huge cellular and molecular diversity.

Berlin has a long tradition as a medical metropolis and also the potential to become an international hub for the life sciences, comparable to Boston. On September 28, researchers from both cities will discuss this issue with the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Michael Müller.

Berlin will become one of four new National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) locations in addition to Heidelberg and Dresden. This was announced today by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, recognizing the outstanding achievements of Charité, the BIH and the MDC in advancing cancer treatment and research.

Hundreds of researchers, clinicians, industry leaders and policy makers from all around Europe are united by a vision of how to revolutionize healthcare. In a perspective in Nature and the LifeTime Strategic Research Agenda they now present a roadmap of how to leverage the latest scientific breakthroughs and technologies over the next decade, to track, understand and treat human cells throughout an individual’s lifetime.

Two MDC scientists – Kathrin de Rosa and Ilaria Piazza – have earned ERC Starting Grants to fuel their pioneering research. They are seeking answers to questions that may one day change the way we approach vaccines and think about how small molecules influence gene expression and disease.

A new algorithmic approach reveals individual tumors continue to evolve and remodel their genomes, and this occurs across a broad range of tumor types. Identifying changes that benefit tumors and help them metastasize could help with future treatments. Results are published in Nature.

Immunologist Kathrin de la Rosa investigates how the body’s own B cells protect us from infectious diseases. In the laboratory, she hopes to modify these cells in such a way that they produce powerful antibodies against pathogens which have overwhelmed our immune system until now.

Six animal welfare officers ensure that the MDC observes all the rules when conducting animal experiments for medical research. Nadja Daberkow-Nitsche, head of the MFC animal house and her colleagues also help MDC researchers to submit animal experimentation applications to the relevant authorities.

A team at the MDC has answered a question that has puzzled scientists for some 40 years. In the journal Cell, the group explains how cells are able to switch on completely different signaling pathways using only one signaling molecule: the nucleotide cAMP. To achieve this, the molecule is virtually imprisoned in nanometer-sized spaces.

MDC researchers received a $150,000 pilot project grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Neurodegeneration Challenge Network to investigate a defining feature of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Opioids are both a curse and a blessing. They can relieve people of pain, but they often come with severe side effects – including dependency. Researchers at the Max Delbrück Center have now investigated the signaling pathways that produce both the desired effects and undesired side effects in the brain.

A new approach to chronic pain treatment targets a molecule that moves pain messages into nerve cell nuclei. For this study recently published in Science, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science worked together with MDC scientists.