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Cells normally possess a molecular glue (adhesion molecules) which keeps them together via specific junctions. Cancer cells seem to have lost this "molecular glue" which allows them to travel to other tissues to form metastases, the life threatening off shoots of cancer cells. In recent years, molecular and cell biologist have discovered various molecular structures that play a crucial role in this cell adhesion and other molecules which are associated with the development of metastasis. In addition, tumour suppressor genes have been identified which prevent cells from being transformed into cancer cells. They also participate in setting up cell junctions. On the other hand, oncogenes - genes that have been genetically altered and are able to induce cancerogenesis - destabilize cell junctions. These new findings suggest that tumour suppressor gene products also seem to play an important role in controlling invasive processes and the development of metastasis, cell biologist Walter Birchmeier, Professor at the MAX DELBRÜCK CENTER FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE (MDC) BERLIN-BUCH, told an audience of more than 200 scientists at a meeting on "Complex Genetic Diseases" at the MDC in Berlin-Buch.

In France, there has never been national policy of human genome research. Instead, the Nobel Prize winner Jean Dausset and Daniel Cohen, at that time Dausset's assistant, started their own, privately financed project by founding the Centre d'Etude du Polymorphisme Humaine (CEPH) in 1982. They set up an extensive collection of genetic material (DNA) from families with several members which may be used free of charge by genecists from all over the world.

Jean Weissenbach: Disease gene research would profit from coordinating strategies

The genetics of complex diseases with widespread prevalence, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases, to a great extent still remains a puzzle which scientists and medical doctors hope to better understand by looking deeper into the human genome.

In the News and Views column of the journal (p. 723), Richard Warn from the School of Biological...

3rd International Symposium on Human Gene Therapy in Berlin

Tom Rapoport works on the transport of proteins in the cell, an area in which he already has won...

The new company will receive financial support from the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology...

The first international symposium on human gene therapy in Germany, a country in which this kind of research is highly controversial, was held at the newly founded Max Delbrück Centre for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin Buch. About two hundred scientists from Germany, the United Kingdom, the USA, France and Italy attended the meeting on "Human Gene Therapy and Mutant Animal Models" from March 26 - March 27.

The prize is given to the three scientists from Berlin-Buch for their basic research on celluar...