Join the Max Delbrück Center Bioengineering Symposium!
Imagine this future hospital lab: A technician grows colon cancer cells into a miniature version of a patient’s tumor – an organoid. Once mature, the organoid is placed onto a microfluidic chip containing tiny channels that mimic blood vessels, alongside liver and heart organoids grown from the same patient’s cells. The chip is now ready to serve as a testbed to find the most effective therapy for the patient’s cancer, while minimizing harm to his liver and heart.
Nearby, a 3D printer builds a new kidney from a patient’s own stem cells, layer by layer; another one prints biomaterials that can encase cocktails of regenerative compounds that can be injected directly into injured tissues to boost healing. In the next lab, immune cells are engineered to hunt tumors, direct tissue repair, or shut down harmful inflammation with unprecedented precision.
At the Max Delbrück Center Bioengineering Symposium 2026, international leaders in organoids, organs-on-chip technologies, regenerative biomaterials, and programmable cell therapies will discuss the scientific advances that are bringing such precision medicine closer to clinical reality. The symposium, which is organized into three topical sessions, will take place on July 6, 2026, at the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin-Buch.
Agenda and speakers
At the meeting, Dr. Matthias Lütolf (IHB/EPFL), for example, will discuss engineering highly reproducible organoids and organoid-on-chip systems that more faithfully recreate human tissues for disease modeling and drug testing. Dr. Kelly Stevens (University of Washington) will present her pioneering methods to build artificial human tissues and to remotely control them after they have been implanted in a patient. And Dr. Li Tang (EPFL) will talk about intelligent biomaterials that can steer immune responses to improve cancer immunotherapies and fight infections.
Other internationally renowned speakers include Drs. Francesca Ceroni (Imperial College London), Aleksandr Ovsianikov (TU Wien), Susan Thomas (Georgia Institute of Technology), and Yu Shrike Zhang (Harvard Medical School). Please see the program agenda for a full list.
“Bioengineering is redefining what is possible in medicine. We are beginning to engineer living systems that can detect disease earlier, repair damaged tissues, and direct the body’s own cells to fight illness,” says Dr. Maike Sander, Scientific Director of the Max Delbrück Center. “As these technologies mature, they have the potential to shift healthcare from treating disease after it occurs to predicting, preventing, and precisely targeting it before lasting damage is done. I am excited that this symposium will bring together many of the researchers leading this transformation.”
The sessions will be moderated by editors from “Nature Biomedical Engineering”, “Nature Communications”, “Nature Reviews Bioengineering”, and “Nature Cardiovascular Research.”
Berlin focus on bioengineering
The symposium is part of a broader effort at the Max Delbrück Center to harness the power of bioengineering to turn biomedical discoveries into the medicine of the future. It is being jointly organized by Sander, who is also Chair of the bioengineering Coordination Unit of Helmholtz Health, Drs. Karen Christman and Milica Radisic, two internationally recognized leaders in bioengineering and visiting fellows at the Max Delbrück Center, and Dr. Christine Horejs, Chief Editor of “Nature Reviews Bioengineering.”
Earlier this year, the Helmholtz Association announced that it is dedicating €36 million to three new research initiatives — one of which is biomedical engineering — as part of Germany’s High-Tech Agenda. And last year, the Helmholtz Association approved €30.8 million in funding for the Center for AI-Accelerated Molecular Innovations in Medicine (AI2M) to be located at the Max Delbrück Center. AI2M will form part of a bioengineering hub in Buch and support research in the area. It will also further the center’s efforts in precision prevention and AI strategies.
Further information
Contacts
Journalists are warmly invited to attend, meet international experts, explore story angles and learn about emerging technologies that could shape future diagnostics and therapies. To register, media representatives should contact:
Jana Schlütter
Deputy Head, Communications and Marketing
Max Delbrück Center
+49 30 9406 – 2121
presse@mdc-berlin.de
Tabea Rauscher
Head, Communications and Marketing
Max Delbrück Center
+49 30 9406 – 2140
presse@mdc-berlin.de
- Max Delbrück Center
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The Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association lays the foundation for the medicine of tomorrow through our discoveries of today. At locations in Berlin-Buch, Berlin-Mitte, Heidelberg, and Mannheim, interdisciplinary teams investigate the complexity of disease at the systems level – from molecules and cells to organs and entire organisms. Together with academic, clinical, and industry partners, and as part of global networks, we turn biological insights into innovations for early detection, personalized therapies, and disease prevention. Founded in 1992, the Max Delbrück Center is home to a vibrant, international research community of around 1,800 people from over 70 countries. We are 90 percent funded by the German federal government and 10 percent by the state of Berlin.
