The Berlin Center for Translational Vascular Biomedicine (VasBioBerlin) integrates research activities at three major life science institutions - the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), the Max Delbrück Center and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. With this, the Center shapes an unprecedented cluster and nucleus that connects and inspires vascular biology research activities in Berlin. Through the synergistic approach of the Center creativity, know-how and technologies are bundled to ultimately develop new therapies and personalized approaches for diagnostics and treatment of a variety of progressive diseases.
VasBioBerlin aims to prevent and revert morbidity and progressive end organ damage in vascular diseases by unravelling, conceptualizing and treating local and systemic causes and clinical manifestation of vascular dysfunction. It combines interdisciplinary experimental and clinical research on the basis of clinical cohorts, novel humanized disease models and generative computational modelling approaches.
Guided by the integrative nature, vascular research benefits from and nourishes research activities in neuroscience, cardiovascular, renal and metabolic research, immunology and cancer, pursuing cross-organ questions of vascular biomedicine and offering manifold interactions with the existing research activities in Berlin. Translational vascular biomedicine ultimately aims to develop strategies for personalized treatment of vascular diseases, inspire interdisciplinary scientists and clinicians with a translational mindset and research agenda, and train new generations of pioneering translational scientists.
The Center is governed by the Focus Area Committee, which develops the strategic direction in agreement with the Board of Directors from BIH, Charité and the Max Delbrück Center, coordinates the award of project funds within the Center and fosters the scientific exchange by hosting scientific events. The Focus Area Committee is composed of 12 senior scientists (see table below) and meets meets monthly.
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Holger Gerhardt (speaker) | Group leader “Integrative Vascular Biology“ (MDC), Professor for Experimental Cardiovascular Research (Charité), DZHK Professor (German Center for Cardiovascular Research), BIH Professor |
| Birgit Sawitzki (speaker) | Group leader at the Institute of Medical Immunology, Professor for Translational Immunology (BIH, Charité) |
| Michela Di Virgilio | Group leader, “Genome Diversification & Integrity “(MDC, Charité) |
| Kai-Uwe Eckardt | Director of the Department of Nephrology and Medical Intensive Care, (Charité) |
| Sarah Hedtrich | BIH Johanna Quandt Professor for Translational Human Organ Models (BIH at Charité), Department of Infectious Diseases and Respiratory Medicine (Charité) |
| Norbert Hübner | Group leader “Genetics and Genomics of Cardiovascular Diseases“ (MDC) |
| Wolfgang Kübler | Director of the Institute of Physiology (Charité) |
| Ulf Landmesser | Director of the Medical Department of Cardiology (Charité), Medical Director of the Charité Center 11 for Cardiovascular Diseases |
| Dominik N. Müller | Group leader “Hypertension-Mediated End-Organ Damage“, (Experimental and Clinical Research Center, ECRC & MDC) |
| Tobias Pischon | Group leader “Molecular Epidemiology”(MDC) |
| Michael Potente | Group leader "Angiogenesis & Metabolism" (BIH, Charité) |
| Carsten Tschöpe | Professor of Medicine and Cardiology (BIH, Charité), Vice Director of the Department of Cardiology (Charité) |
Additionally, an external sounding board with international experts from the field advises the Center regarding its international visibility, the selection of project funds and the strategic development of the Center. It is composed of the following members:
The current Core Faculty of the Center includes Prof. Holger Gerhardt (Max Delbrück Center, Integrative Vascular Biology) and Prof. Michael Potente (BIH, Angiogenesis & Metabolism). The faculty was recently expanded with the recruitment of Dr Daria Bunina (Systems biology of cardiovascular and neuronal pathologies) and Dr Yoichiro Sugimoto (Molecular mechanisms of environment sensing). All research groups are located at the Käthe-Beutler Building on Campus Buch. More information about the research groups can be found here.
In order to address the deficit in translational approaches in this area, the Berlin Center for Translational Vascular Biomedicine (VasBioBerlin) integrates research activities at three major life science institutions - the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), the Max Delbrück Center and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Under the roof of a new research building, the Käthe-Beutler-Haus on the Buch campus, a unique translational focus is created under the joint control of basic researchers and clinicians. The aim is to decipher the local and systemic causes of vascular malfunctions so that clinical manifestations can be treated. Interdisciplinary teams work in a bottom-up approach on central issues to address the most important clinical challenges in the personalized diagnosis and treatment of vascular disease. For this purpose, cohort studies, and research on humanized disease models, as well as computer-aided modelling approaches, are combined to develop new approaches for prevention, diagnosis and therapy. Three main goals of VasBioBerlin have been defined by the community:
The Core Faculty of the Center includes Dr. Daria Bunina (Max Delbrück Center, Systems Biology of Cardiovascular and Neuronal Pathologies), Prof. Holger Gerhardt (Max Delbrück Center, Integrative Vascular Biology), Prof. Michael Potente (BIH, Angiogenesis & Metabolism), and Dr. Yoichiro Sugimoto (Max Delbrück Center, Molecular mechanisms of environment sensing).
Furthermore, the Center is financially supporting collaborative and innovative projects implementing translational pipelines that bridge basic and clinical science in vascular biomedicine. VasBioBerlin does not only provide seed funding but also supports high-risk/high-gain projects. During the first project call in June/July 2020, the Center received 27 eligible applications from researchers and clinician scientists from BIH/Charité/MDC, which were evaluated by the Center’s External Sounding Board. Based on the evaluations, the Steering Committee selected 10 projects to be funded for a two-year period.
The following projects have been selected during the first project call:
| Project Titel | Project Lead | Project Partners |
|---|---|---|
| Circulating endothelial cells as a tool to determine pneumonia patients at risk of acquiring cardiovascular diseases | Ulrich Kertzscher (Charité) | Martin Witzenrath (Charité), Norbert Hübner (Max Delbrück Center) |
| Clonal hematopoiesis and ischemic stroke | Matthias Endres (Charité) | Frederik Damm (Charité), Paulina Strzelecka (Charité), Cristopher Arends (Charité), Thomas Liman (Charité) |
| Deciphering physiological mechanisms of reverse pulmonary vascular remodeling in pulmonary hypertension | Christoph Knosalla (Charité) | Wolfgang Kübler (Charité), Norbert Hübner (Max Delbrück Center), Mariya M. Kucherenko (DZHB, Charité) |
| Expanding the application of retinal blood vessel analysis | Hanna Zimmermann (ECRC) | Oliver Zeitz (Charité), Martin Witzenrath (Charité), Oliver Peters (ECRC), Kristin Kräker (ECRC), Ralf Dechend (ECRC), Friedemann Paul (ECRC), Anja Mähler (ECRC), Stefanie Märschenz (NCRC), Sein Schmidt (Charité) |
| Gut microbiota related determinants of disease severity, risk of vascular events and clinical outcome in Covid-19 | Arash Haghikia (Charité) | Sofia Forslund (Max Delbrück Center), Andras Balogh (Max Delbrück Center), Jennifer Kirwan (MDC, BIH) |
| Mapping the renal vascular endothelium in health and acute kidney injury | Christian Hinze (Charité, Max Delbrück Center) | Kai Schmidt-Ott (Charité), Philipp Enghard (Charité), Nikolaus Rajewsky (MDC-BIMSB), Kai-Uwe Eckardt (Charité), Sebastian Bachmann (Charité), Birgit Rudolph (Charité), Jonas Busch (Charité) |
| Post-preeclampsia - common mechanisms in microvascular dysfunction cause for cardiovascular and retinal end organ damage | Ralf Dechend (ECRC) | Dagmar Kainmüller (BIH, Max Delbrück Center), Kristin Kräker (ECRC), Nadine Reichhart (Charité), Olaf Strauß (Charité) |
| T-cell-endothelium interactions in the pathophysiology of coronary- and cellular-therapy-initiated inflammatory disease | Theresa Gerhardt (Charité) | Olaf Penack (Charité) |
| The COVID-19 puzzle – The microvascular barrier as a missing piece between coagulation and organ failure | Wolfgang Kübler (Charité) | Holger Gerhardt (MDC), Philipp Mertins (MDC), Nikolaus Rajewsky (MDC-BIMSB), Martin Witzenrath (Charité), David Koppstein (MDC-BIMSB), Laura Michalick (Charité), Anna Szymborska-Mell (MDC) |
| Translational approach to understand, diagnose and treat vascular malformations | René Hägerling (Charité) | Susanne von der Heydt (Charité) |
Pursuing its mission, the Berlin Center for Translational Vascular Biomedicine (VasBioBerlin) initiated the Lecture Series “Vascular Networking” in February 2021 to invite distinguished experts and promote international scientific exchange to both enrich the Berlin scientific community and provide the foundation for new and visionary collaborations.
The lecture series takes place on the last Wednesday of every month at 3 pm CET. It is conducted in an online-format and attracts a broad audience from the wider Berlin community. The event comprises a 45 min talk and a 15 min open discussion followed by a 1 hour closed exchange with 3-4 interested experts.
Upcoming talk:
tba
Previous speakers:
The project leaders and partners of the VasBio-funded projects (see project table) met with members of the Focus Area Committee for a mid-term check-in meeting after the first year of the 2-year funding period. The focus of this mini-symposium was not only on the scientific progress, but also on challenges that arose due to the Covid-pandemic and other factors. This small interactive group meeting encouraged further exchange and cross-fertilization between the different projects.
As part of Berlin Science Week, members of the Berlin Center for Translational Vascular Biomedicine (Holger Gerhardt, Michael Potente and Birgit Sawitzki) discussed together with Leif Erik Sander (Charité) and Emanuel Wyler (MDC) the key aspects of cardiovascular health in context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The online panel was chaired by Vesna Todorovic, chief editor of the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research.
Five candidates were invited to present their research in the field of Data Science in a half-day symposium.
The joint online workshop put current methods from ocular diagnostics into the context of endothelial dysfunction. 61 researchers and clinicians interested in current methods to study endothelial functionality and diagnose dysfunctions participated in the workshop. The diverse speaker panel presented different techniques, together with case studies, followed by an open discussion. This event rose awareness about locally available equipment and techniques to analyze endothelial functionality in humans and animal models. Furthermore, an exchange about knowledge on possible applications for population-based screens, as well as target-oriented research took place. The participants agreed that the area of ocular diagnostics offers unique opportunities to transfer scientific methods into translation and clinical use and that it is important to mirror preclinical data into the clinical situation.
One year after the kick-off event, the VasBioBerlin community met online to examine current developments and to discuss how the pandemic impacted vascular biomedical research. The focus of this workshop was the presentation of 10 research projects that had been selected for funding by VasBioBerlin. (More information of the funded project can be found here.) In breakout sessions, the participants exchanged their experiences from the pandemic and identified advantages and challenges of newly developed models and methods.
As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, VasBioBerlin organized an online-workshop in 2 sessions (May 19 and 20, 2020) to encourage an interdisciplinary exchange about planned and ongoing COVID-19-related research activities in Berlin. 29 interested BIH, Charité & MDC researchers and clinicians with diverse backgrounds participated and developed concepts on how to gain a greater understanding of the endothelial and vascular component of COVID-19. Based on short presentations of their research projects and studies in session 1, participants used session 2 to discuss and develop new approaches on 1) how to analyze endothelial dysfunction phenotypes in COVID-19, 2) How to study the heterogeneity of vascular end organ involvement in COVID-19, and 3) how to model vascular pathomechanisms of COVID-19 ex vivo.
On December 10 2019, over 60 researchers and clinicians from BIH, Charité, and MDC came together for the kick-off workshop at the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB). In the course of 20 flash talks, the participants presented current issues and unmet clinical needs in the area of vascular biomedicine. Based on the topics presented, participants subsequently split up in three interest groups, “Endothelial Dysfunction and Inflammation”, “Vascular remodeling”, and “Vascularized Organoids”, where they discussed and defined central questions and relevant diseases of the field and outlined promising translational approaches. VasBioBerlin is using the results gained in the workshop to further specify its translational aims.
