News & Events

Congratulations to Gary Lewin on his election as a new member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina! The prestigious honor recognizes his scientific accomplishments over the span of his career. 

Michael Gotthardt and his team have discovered a previously unknown genetic switch that affects RBM20, an important protein in heart cells. The findings, published in ​“Nature Communications,” suggest a potential new target for treating cardiomyopathies more precisely in the future. 

Researchers at the Max Delbrück Center have found a way to improve CAR‑T cancer therapy to treat lymphoma. By additionally engineering the cells to express the receptor CCR7, they show in ​“Cancer Immunology Research” that the CAR‑T cells penetrate lymph nodes more efficiently and kill cancer cells quickly. 

A combination of three drugs appears to more effectively treat people with cystic fibrosis than therapy with only two, concludes a study by Max Delbrück Center researchers published in ​“Cell Systems.” The study analyzed changes in the proteomes of blood and sputum samples from people with the disease. 

A VR journey into microplastics in the brain, a walk-through vein, a laboratory transformed into an escape room: The Max Delbrück Center is hosting 65 events as part of the Long Night of the Sciences. Visitors will get a look at how our researchers’ work is shaping the medicine of tomorrow. 

Different types of bone marrow stem cells give rise to blood and immune cells. A team led by Simon Haas now reports in ​“Nature Cell Biology” how that diversity develops. The findings could help improve stem cell therapies, including treatments for blood cancers. 

The Helmholtz Foundation Model Initiative (HFMI), launched two years ago, supports AI projects focused on processing enormous amounts of data. In this interview, AI expert Dagmar Kainmueller offers an interim assessment — including her own HFMI project, AqQua. 

An international consortium, which includes the Hübner and Ohler Labs, has reported in ​“Nature,” discovering more than 1,700 proteins that may be relevant in human diseases. Mostly very small, they were found in the ​“dark proteome,” a catalogue of gene products from overlooked sections of DNA. 

In ​“Nature Communications,” Max Delbrück Center researchers show how immune cells initiate zebrafish heart regeneration, highlighting the possibility that precisely timed inflammatory signaling of specific immune cells — rather than broad suppression — could inform new approaches to cardiac repair.