Cancer

Researchers in Nikolaus Rajewsky’s lab at Max Delbrück Center combined high-resolution, single-cell spatial technologies to map a tumor’s cellular neighborhoods in 3D and identify potential targets for personalized cancer therapy. They describe their findings in two separate papers in “Cell Systems.”

The Max Delbrück Center mourns the loss of Professor Peter M. Schlag (1948–2025). He was a pioneer of cancer research and a passionate physician. Schlag worked as a group leader at our research center for more than two decades.

Researchers from Mount Sinai, Max Delbrück Center and other international institutions have identified a novel cancer cell state that fuels resistance to therapy in colorectal cancer. The findings, which were published in “Nature Genetics,” reveal a new mechanism and potential drug target.

When blood cancer cells break through the bone and multiply, tumor cells become dangerously diverse and the immune response in the region changes, researchers from Berlin and Heidelberg report in “Science Immunology.” The detailed insights into cancer progression could advance diagnostics and treatment.

Therapy that is tailored to patients’ diseases is largely unaffordable. Three Max Delbrück Center postdocs have won GO-Bio Initial grants to simplify and improve personalized therapies. They aim to bring down costs to enable more widespread access.

Simon Haas has been awarded the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) Prize for the promotion of cancer research, sponsored by the Monika Kutzner Foundation. His outstanding research focuses on the causes and the development of new concepts for the treatment of blood cancer.

Researchers in the lab of Michael Sigal at the Max Delbrück Center and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have elucidated the role of the p53 gene in ulcerative colitis. The study, published in “Science Advances,” suggests a potential new drug target to stop disease progression to cancer.

Foundation models are complex AI applications with enormous potential. Trained on vast datasets from medicine, climate, or material science, they can uncover new relationships and make predictions. Helmholtz is supporting this pioneering work, with €5.55 million going to the Max Delbrück Center.

Johannes Huppa has taken up the professorship for tumor immunology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin as of September 1. The T-cell receptor expert will also conduct research at the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin-Buch and the German Consortium for Translational Cancer Research (DKTK).

Berlin researchers and their partners describe how aggressive variants of multiple myeloma can be detected early. Their comprehensive study in “Nature Cancer” shows how changes in genetic material affect the protein profile of the tumor cells, and thus the mechanisms involved in the disease.