News & Events

Shortly before Berlin’s Christopher Street Day, the MDC will hold a Pride Symposium for the first time. On July 22, 2022, everyone is welcome to exchange ideas about queer issues in life sciences and health care.

We talked, explained, danced, experimented and told stories together: About 3000 visitors came to the Long Night of Science on July 2 at the Max Delbrück Center in Buch and in Mitte. A recap in pictures – and on the focus on science and art.

An international consortium brings together 7,200 segments of the human genome that are virtually unexplored and presents a roadmap for integrating them into genome databases in “Nature Biotechnology”. They could hold information about what sets humans apart from other animals.

The way the genome is folded regulates gene activation, so it can’t be left to chance. Molecular boundaries across the genome keep things in order. A team led by MDC researcher Darío Lupiáñez has discovered how these boundaries work. Their findings, published in "Nature Genetics", could help us to better understand developmental diseases or cancer.

Jana Wolf draws on experimental data and the growing knowledge of cellular mechanisms to translate disease processes into mathematical models. Her models aim to represent the complexity of life as realistically as possible and to help develop therapies that are precisely tailored to the patient.

Karsten Häcker is Chief Information Officer at the Max Delbrück Center. He loves the world of science as much as the world of computers. Sporting challenges and discoveries are his metier. In his reading tip, a science fiction novel, he takes you to the North Pole.

Why is it useful to fish in Berlin's sewage? What do Beethoven's locks of hair disclose? And what does cancer have to do with obesity? All of this will be discussed on July 2, 2022, when MDC researchers will open their laboratories during the Long Night. Another focus: science and art.

For almost three decades, Claus Scheidereit has been at the MDC researching a “gene switch” that plays a decisive role in certain cancers. As his time as a lab head comes to an end, he is on the verge of developing new drugs for cancer therapy.

The PROSPER research project is bringing together researchers at four different sites in Germany to study whether a specific nutritional supplement can protect premature babies from blood poisoning. The BMBF is supporting the project, in which a group from the ECRC is involved, to the tune of €1.9 million.