News

A chlamydia infection triggers an inflammatory response at the cellular level. MDC researchers conducted experiments in cell cultures to examine the role that the enzyme GBP1 plays in this response. They have now published their findings in Cell Reports.

Strategies for treating multiple sclerosis have so far focused primarily on T and B cells. A group of MDC researchers has now unveiled a new approach in Nature Immunology – one that seeks to increase treatment effectiveness by selectively targeting another type of immune cell called monocytes.

VRAC/LRRC8 chloride channels do not only play a decisive role in the transport of cytostatics, amino acids and neurotransmitters. They can also transport the important messenger substance cGAMP from cell to cell and thus strengthen the immune response to infections with DNA viruses.

Thomas Blankenstein receives an ERC Advanced grant for cancer research. The scientist wants to find out if T cells control the development of cancer by a process called immunosurveillance. For this purpose he now proposes a new research model.

Researchers at the MDC observe the very early stages of blood vessel development in lymph node tumors. The findings published in Cancer Research suggest a potential treatment target to slow lymphoma tumor growth.

Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) have an altered gut microbiome composition and produce less of a certain fatty acid. This was reported by a team of researchers from Ruhr-Universität Bochum, the MDC and the ECRC in Cell. Their findings show that propionic acid might be relevant for MS immunotherapy.

In light of the pandemic, the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) is pooling together its resources for projects that advance the understanding of SARS-CoV-2, while scaling down its regular research operations to a minimum. Here’s an overview of the MDC’s current collaborations and plans.

Programmed cell death, or apoptosis, kills off billions of cells in the human body every day, but without it life would not be possible. A team of researchers led by Professor Klaus Rajewsky, an immunologist at the MDC, has now published a study in the journal Genes & Development that sheds new light on cellular survival strategies.

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.

Some 1,000 participants came together at this year’s German Society for Immunology conference in Munich. The Helmholtz initiative Immunology & Inflammation also organized its own symposium, and two MDC researchers received awards.