Science

Muscle cells are very good at repairing damage. But if this fails, stem cells step in to regenerate the tissue. Carmen Birchmeier investigates the molecular signaling pathways that underlie these and other vital mechanisms.

Researchers suspect that neurodegenerative diseases occur when messenger RNA (mRNA) goes astray in the neuron. With a new method, Marina Chekulaeva is able to identify “zipcodes” that assign a destination to mRNAs. She has now presented her method in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Combining single-cell data with a self-learning algorithm reveals how structural changes in chromosomes can trigger cancer. This new method could pave the way for personalized cancer treatments, writes a team led by Ashley Sanders in “Nature Biotechnology”.

A group of international researchers – among them Stephan Mathas from the ECRC – has found that changing a single segment of the genome causes a previously unknown immunodeficiency in humans. The paper, which appears in Science Immunology, reports the discovery of a point mutation in the transcription factor IRF4.

Leif S. Ludwig, a researcher at the Max Delbrück Center and the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH), will receive the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Young Investigator Award 2023 for a new method to analyze the formation of blood cells, as the Scientific Council of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation announced today.

Organoids have to be fed and cared for continuously so that they can mature. So far, it is mostly a manual process – not suitable for industrial drug screening. Now, the European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Mina Gouti a Proof of Concept Grant to tackle scalability and reproducibility.

“Mach Ideen groß” is the theme of this year’s nationwide “Jugend forscht” competition, which is again being held at Campus Berlin-Buch. The Max Delbrück Center, along with the other sponsoring institutions, will be hosting 29 projects by Berlin’s young STEM talents.

Il-Kang Na, BIH Johanna Quandt Professor and head of a research group at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC), became the new director of the BIH Charité Clinician Scientist Program on January 1, 2023. Her own journey has made her a role model for aspiring clinician scientists.

For nearly two decades, Oliver Daumke has been working to solve the mystery of how a molecular machine remodels cellular membranes. His team has now found the answer with the help of cryo-electron tomography. They report their findings in the journal “Nature Communications”.

When physicist Thoralf Niendorf encounters the impossible, it spurs his creativity. Using ultra high-resolution MRI technology, he peers deeper and deeper into healthy and diseased tissue. He develops novel methods that visualize biological processes within the cell.