News

Neuroscientists Gary Lewin and James Poulet at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine have won highly coveted and competitive ERC Advanced Grants to study pain and the neural mechanisms that underlie temperature perception.

Touch is a fundamental, yet scarcely understood, sense. Now, the team led by Gary Lewin at the Max Delbrück Center has discovered a second ion channel associated with touch perception. Elkin1 could be a target for pain therapy, the team writes in “Science”.

The artists Elisabetta Citterio and Claudia Cagliano have created portraits of nearly 60 female researchers from nine countries. Twenty-five of them can be viewed in the "STEM Passion" exhibition until March 12, 2024 in the Rahel Hirsch Center for Translational Medicine Berlin.

Special receptor cells under the skin enable us to feel pain and touch. But Schwann cells also play a key role in detecting such stimuli, researchers at the Max Delbrück Center report in “Nature Communications.” This discovery opens new avenues for pain therapy.

A new computer program allows scientists to design synthetic DNA segments that indicate, in real time, the state of cells. Reported by the Gargiulo lab in “Nature Communications”, it will be used to screen for anti-cancer or viral infections drugs, or to improve gene and cell-based immunotherapies.

Some hereditary genetic defects cause an exaggerated immune response that can be fatal. Using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool, such defects can be corrected, thus normalizing the immune response, as researchers led by Klaus Rajewsky from the Max Delbrück Center now report in “Science Immunology.”

Cell-based immunotherapies, particularly lab-produced immune cells known as CAR T cells, show promise in treating various cancers. But how do we produce effective ones? Gaetano Gargiulo from the Max Delbrück Center will develop a novel screening tool, supported by an ERC Proof of Concept Grant.

A tumor often arises when cancer genes multiply. In this process, additional genes act as hitchhikers, potentially creating previously unknown vulnerabilities that open the door to new therapeutic approaches. This finding is reported by a team led by ECRC-scientists Anton Henssen and Jan Dörr in "Cancer Discovery."

If waste DNA or RNA remains in cells, it can lead to diseases such as Alzheimer’s and autoimmune conditions. Writing in Nucleic Acids Research, scientists led by Oliver Daumke of the Max Delbrück Center describe the role one enzyme plays in removing this waste.

In neuromuscular diseases, neurons and muscle cells stop communicating properly. Researchers led by Mina Gouti can now model this in 2D in a culture dish. Writing about their findings in “Nature Communications”, they say the new model promises to revolutionize high-throughput drug screening studies.