Cardiovascular Research

The BioInnovation Institute (BII) has selected Berlin and Munich as its German locations for the CardioMetabolic Bridge, a European initiative funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The initiative aims to translate findings from cardiometabolic research into new companies and therapies.

HI-TAC’s co-leadership team is complete: Johannes Backs, a physician, is now serving as scientific director of the Helmholtz Institute – alongside Karina Yaniv. Backs studies how the heart communicates with other organs and aims to bring new drugs to patients more quickly.

Max Delbrück Center researchers have discovered a previously unknown genetic switch that affects RBM20, an important protein in heart cells. The findings, published in “Nature Communications,” suggest a potential new target for treating cardiomyopathies more precisely in the future.

Why does obesity cause heart disease and diabetes in some people, but not in others? And how do the different types of adipose tissue influence cardiovascular disease? These are just a few of the many questions Mascha Koenen will pursue as a Junior Group Leader at HI-TAC in Mannheim.

The true cause of RBM20 cardiomyopathy, a severe inherited form of heart failure, is not the gene defect itself, but an overactive protein, concludes a study led by researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for Translational AngioCardioScience and published in “Nature Cardiovascular Research.”

Researchers at the the Deutsches Herzzentrum der Charité and the Max Delbrück Center have identified a unique metabolic fingerprint in the hearts of patients with HFpEF and obesity. The findings, which were published in “Cardiovascular Research,” point to new drug targets.

The Helmholtz Institute for Translational AngioCardioScience in Mannheim/Heidelberg has appointed vascular biologist Karina Yaniv from the Weizmann Institute as its new Scientific Director. Yaniv will bridge research across institutes to fast-track therapies for cardiovascular disease.

Checkpoint inhibitors help fight cancer but increase the risk of heart disease. An interdisciplinary team, including researchers from the Max Delbrück Center, is investigating how the therapy can be made safer. The Hector Foundation is supporting the project with €1.3 million.

Michael Gotthardt at the Max Delbrück Center and collaborators are developing a drug to treat a common type of heart failure characterized by impaired cardiac filling. In “Cardiovascular Research,” his group and a US team showed the therapy improves cardiac function in a mouse model of the disease.

Epidemiologist Tobias Pischon not only studies the incidence of chronic diseases in populations, but also why they develop. To better predict and prevent these conditions, he searches for molecular markers in the blood and studies the influence of environment, genes, and lifestyle.