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Dr. Oliver Daumke and Dr. Matthias Selbach Named EMBO Young Investigators

Two of the total of seven young researchers in Germany selected to receive Young Investigator grants from the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) come from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch. They are the biochemist and protein crystallographer Dr. Oliver Daumke and the cell biologist and proteomics researcher Dr. Matthias Selbach.

Of the 137 applicants, a total of 21 young scientists from 9 European countries and Israel were accepted into the EMBO Young Investigator Programme. Each will receive 15 000 euros per year over the next three years as support to build up their own, independent research groups.

Both researchers came to the MDC in 2007 as Helmholtz Junior Researchers. This position is financed to 50 per cent by the Initiative and Networking Fund of the President of the Helmholtz Association and the other half by the MDC.

Oliver Daumke’s research at the MDC concerns the investigation of the structure and function of GTP-binding proteins, which serve as molecular switches in the signaling pathways or as motor proteins in the cell. These proteins play a key role in the development of cancer and diabetes as well as in infections. In September of this year Oliver Daumke became Junior Professor at the Institute of Medical Physics and Biophysics at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. He has received numerous awards, including a grant of the Human Frontier Science Program, the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society and the Klaus Liebrecht Prize of the University of Cologne for the best PhD thesis.

Matthias Selbach heads the research group “Cellular Signal Transduction and Mass Spectrometry” at the MDC. Together with his research team, he developed a new method to measure the production of thousands of proteins simultaneously. Moreover, he showed that a single microRNA can control the formation of hundreds of proteins. MicroRNAs are small fragments of ribonucleic acid (RNA), a close chemical relative of DNA, that determine which proteins will be produced by the different cells. Since in cancer cells different microRNAs are active than those in healthy cells, microRNAs are considered to be promising candidates for diagnosis and therapy. At the beginning of this year Matthias Selbach received the Analytica Research Award 2010. Furthermore, since October 2010 he is also Professor of Proteomics Research at the Charité in Berlin.

The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) was founded in 1964. Its mission is to promote excellence in molecular biology research. It has built up a network of laboratories throughout Europe that work in this field, among them the MDC. Only recently, Professor Nikolaus Rajewsky was elected as the seventh MDC scientist to become an EMBO member. The “EMBO Young Investigators” belong to a network of currently 200 excellent young researchers who receive financial, academic and practical support from EMBO.

 

Barbara Bachtler
Press and Public Affairs
Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch
Robert-Rössle-Straße 10; 13125 Berlin; Germany
Phone: +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 96
Fax:  +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 33
e-mail: presse@mdc-berlin.de
http://www.mdc-berlin.de/
 

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