Genetics & Genomics

The Max Delbrück Center is a partner of the doctoral network GetRadi, which was started in September. Young scientists who want to learn how to develop gene therapies for rare diseases can apply to be a part of the EU-funded project until October 20.

Klaus Rajewsky’s life reads like a chronicle of immunogenetics. He grasped the opportunities offered by radical changes in molecular biology. He established standard methods for researching gene functions and diseases like cancer. And he continues to contribute to our understanding of antibody-producing B cells.

Mammals possess a gene that controls a novel structure in nerve cells. Researchers at the Max Delbrück Center and the Milner Centre for Evolution have discovered it and describe it in the journal „Molecular Biology and Evolution”.

To combat pathogens, the immune system needs an enormous number of different antibodies. In an MDC study, a group led by BIH professor Kathrin de la Rosa has now described in the journal PNAS a “stealing” mechanism that contributes to antibody diversity.

Daria Bunina has been the head of a new lab at the MDC since July 2022. Her team is researching how epigenetic factors affect cell differentiation. When errors in this process occur, cardiovascular diseases and neurodevelopmental disorders can result.

Cardiomyopathy is not a uniform disease. Rather, individual genetic defects lead to heart failure in different ways, an international consortium reports in “Science”. MDC researcher Norbert Hübner is one of the senior authors.

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.

The molecular tool CRISPR-Cas9 can be used to treat inherited blood disorders, but this may cause unintended genetic alterations. A team led by MDC researchers Klaus Rajewsky and Van Trung Chu has now presented an approach in “Science Advances” that minimizes such adverse consequences.

Pediatric oncologist Anton Henssen and a group of researchers from the US and the UK have won funding for a Cancer Grand Challenge. The international team will receive almost €24 million to research the role that ring-shaped strands of DNA play in the development of cancer, and how to fight them.