Neuroscience

Jana Kroll, Christian Rosenmund and their teams have captured the fleeting moment a nerve cell releases its neurotransmitters into the synaptic cleft. The work was published in “Nature Communications.”

For a healthy brain and nervous system to form in the embryo, chemical and mechanical signals must precisely guide cell development. Annette Hammes investigates the factors that can disrupt this finely tuned system – to enable the early detection, and potentially the prevention, of brain malformations.

Researchers at the Max Delbrück Center and Aarhus University have found a mechanism through which the gene variant APOE4, long linked to a high risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, impairs neuronal function in the aging brain. The research was published in “Nature Metabolism.”

Thoralf Niendorf at the Max Delbrück Center has won a Proof of Concept Grant from the European Research Council to study the use of heat generated during MRI scans to selectively destroy brain tumors. The method could pose significantly fewer risks than laser ablation or surgery.

The Max Delbrück Center welcomes two visiting fellows, both from the U.S., supported by Stiftung Charité: Karen Christman at the Sander Lab and Jakob von Moltke at the Lewin Lab. They will launch new interdisciplinary projects that cover neurobiology, immunology and bioengineering.

The Max Delbrück Center is a partner in one newly awarded Berlin based Clusters of Excellence: ImmunoPreCept. NeuroCure has also won another round of funding. All researchers are working toward a common goal – to develop therapies that can intercept diseases on a molecular level.

“The Healing Museum” combines art history with meditation, mindfulness, and medical research. The project, which aims to strengthen the mental health of visitors, was created through a collaboration between the Bode Museum and the ECRC and was spearheaded by Carmen Infante Duarte.

For the next two years, Abeer Hassan will be a visiting postdoctoral fellow in Gary Lewin’s lab at Max Delbrück Center – going back and forth between Rehovot and Berlin. She seeks to learn more about the mechanisms through which mechanical forces stimulate neurons to elongate, especially after birth.

Nella Christie Delva joins the lab of Annette Hammes-Lewin’s as a Fulbright scholar. Over the next few months, she will study how environmental stressors cause genetic and neural changes in the brain during development, which can lead to mental health disorders.

Wenhan Luo received a two-year Humboldt Fellowship to continue his research in Gary Lewin’s Molecular Physiology of Somatic Sensation Lab. Together, they aim to understand how naked mole rats navigate.