Press Releases

In a new initiative, 23 groups from five Helmholtz Centers are joining forces to address some of the most complex problems in today's immunology in ways that can only be explored in collaboration.

Chromosomes occupy different territories in the nucleus; their arrangement and communication with each other is still poorly understood. Scientists from Berlin and Jena published in EMBO Journal findings about structural chromosomal aberrations which have an effect on genome organization (chromosomal kissing) and disease progression.

MDC researchers have described how the heart forms itself into a its characteristic S-shape and how the ventricles and atria finally develop. Their findings will help to better understand congenital heart diseases.

Too much aldosterone causes hypertension. One cause is a mutation in the CLCN2 gene, which contains the blueprint for an ion channel of the adrenal cortex.

When water intake is low, humans and other higher organisms produce very small quantities of urine....

Common salt reduces the number of certain lactic acid bacteria in the gut of mice and humans according to a study published in Nature by Berlin’s Max Delbrück Center and Charité. This has an impact on immune cells which are partly responsible for autoimmune diseases and hypertension. Probiotics ameliorate the symptoms of disease in mice.

Organs and tissues are comprised of very different types of cells. The heart, for example, contains...

In the largest transcriptome study to date, an international research team analysed the RNA of transplanted hearts and discovered a number of new risk factors for dilated cardiomyopathy and other heart conditions which could thus be recognised more easily in future.

As most naked mole-rats scurry off to work, some continue to lie on their backs for a while in the...