Press Releases

On January 1, 2021, the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH ) will become the translational research unit of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and will then form – alongside the hospital and the medical faculty – Charité’s third pillar.

A muscle fiber consists of just one cell, but many nuclei. A team at the MDC led by Professor Carmen Birchmeier has now shown just how varied these nuclei are. The study, which has been published in Nature Communications, can help us better understand muscle diseases such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

When virologists become reality TV stars, biologists dream of life without illness, researchers debate organoids vs. animal testing with the general public, and biomedical scientists discuss the possibilities of AI, it can only be Berlin Science Week. This year, the MDC is holding a number of virtual events.

Hundreds of researchers, clinicians, industry leaders and policy makers from all around Europe are united by a vision of how to revolutionize healthcare. In a perspective in Nature and the LifeTime Strategic Research Agenda they now present a roadmap of how to leverage the latest scientific breakthroughs and technologies over the next decade, to track, understand and treat human cells throughout an individual’s lifetime.

A team at the MDC has answered a question that has puzzled scientists for some 40 years. In the journal Cell, the group explains how cells are able to switch on completely different signaling pathways using only one signaling molecule: the nucleotide cAMP. To achieve this, the molecule is virtually imprisoned in nanometer-sized spaces.

The LabHive digital platform aims to provide necessary resources to diagnostic centres to enable more tests for SARS-CoV-2. Tobias Opialla from the MDC is one of 15 volunteers who has been involved in the project since the #WirvsVirus Hackathon organized by the German government.

A new diagnostic test to quickly and easily monitor kidney transplant patients for infection and rejection relies on a simple urine sample and a powerful partner: the gene-editing technology CRISPR. Michael Kaminski, who developed it, leads a new Emmy Noether Group at the MDC & Charité.

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.

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.

To strengthen Berlin’s reputation as an international science hub, the capital’s non-university research institutions have come together to form Berlin Research 50 (BR 50). Together, they want to develop research strategies and foster dialogue between science, politics and society. The initiative will also facilitate and strengthen cooperation with Berlin’s universities.