News & Events

Maike Sander has been selected to direct the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC). The Supervisory Board appointed the diabetes researcher and professor of pediatrics and cellular and molecular medicine as the Scientific Director and Chair of the Board on June 16, 2022.

How do cancer cells differ from healthy cells? A new machine learning algorithm called “ikarus” knows the answer, reports a team led by MDC bioinformatician Altuna Akalin in the journal Genome Biology. The AI program has found a gene signature characteristic of tumors.

Blood vessels must adapt their growth to the nutrients available in their surroundings so that they can keep organs adequately supplied. A team led by Michael Potente has identified two proteins that are important for this process and published their findings in Nature Metabolism.

The molecular tool CRISPR-Cas9 can be used to treat inherited blood disorders, but this may cause unintended genetic alterations. A team led by MDC researchers Klaus Rajewsky and Van Trung Chu has now presented an approach in “Science Advances” that minimizes such adverse consequences.

Hanna Zimmermann has spent years studying how the retina can be used to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases. She is now starting her own research group, the Applied Research on the Visual System Lab, at the ECRC – and has also been named a junior professor at Charité. She will receive an endowed professorship from the Einstein Center Digital Future for this purpose.

For 30 years, scientists at the MDC have been investigating the underlying mechanisms of health and disease. And that’s not possible without thinking outside the box, say Thomas Sommer and Young-Ae Lee. We spoke with the two scientists about the history of the MDC and approaches to biomedical research.

Pediatric oncologist Anton Henssen and a group of researchers from the US and the UK have won funding for a Cancer Grand Challenge. The international team will receive almost €24 million to research the role that ring-shaped strands of DNA play in the development of cancer, and how to fight them.