News

Some 27 young researchers have been selected for the prestigious EMBO Young Investigators Programme. Among this year’s awardees is Philipp Junker, a systems biologist at the MDC’s Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology.

New insights into preventing herpes infections have been published in Nature Communications. Researchers from the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB) at the MDC used single-cell RNA sequencing to better understand the viral infections.

The MDC is committed to maintaining respectful interactions at the research center and is taking decisive action to prevent and address bullying, discrimination, and sexual harassment. Since early 2019 an Anti-Harassment Task Force, consisting of a broad cross-section of stakeholders, has been preparing guidelines for this very purpose. The Board of Directors has declared its support for the proposed guidelines.

The equivalent of almost 28 times around the equator – this was the distance covered by participants in the cycling competition “Wer radelt am meisten?” (Who cycles the most?). Berlin’s senator for sport announced the winners at a ceremony on Wednesday at the Olympiastadion. The Buch campus took first place in the category “Best Company.”

From 1 to 10 November 2019, researchers will gather in Berlin to discuss current issues - with each other and with the public. The Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) will be contributing to exciting events.

When the adrenal gland produces too much aldosterone, this often leads to high blood pressure and kidney damage (hyperaldosteronism). It has only recently emerged that several patients harbor a mutation in the gene for the ClC-2 chloride channel. Researchers led by Professor Thomas Jentsch have now been able to show for the first time how the altered channels cause the disease. Their results are reported in the journal Nature Communications.

Modern light microscopic techniques provide extremely detailed insights into organs, but the terabytes of data they produce are usually nearly impossible to process. New software, developed by a team led by MDC scientist Dr. Stephan Preibisch and now presented in Nature Methods, is helping researchers make sense of these reams of data.

A German-Swiss team around Professor Oliver Daumke from the MDC has investigated how a protein of the dynamin family deforms the inner mitochondrial membrane. The results, which also shed light on a hereditary disease of the optic nerve, have been published in Nature.

An international team of researchers are seeking to explore the heart at a depth that was previously impossible. They have now received a grant of nearly four million US dollars from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative – as one of the 38 Seed Networks working on the Human Cell Atlas. MDC researcher Norbert Hübner is co-coordinator of the project.

Anyone wishing to uncover the mysteries of life must explore the realm of molecules and genes. At the Long Night of the Sciences, visitors to the MDC will voyage through this fascinating cosmos in the company of experts.