Personalia

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 German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK) has elected a new executive board. Our Vice Director Holger Gerhardt will continue to serve as part of the three-member leadership team. Congratulations!

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.

The founding director of the Max Delbrück Center, physician and pharmacologist Detlev Ganten, celebrates his 85th birthday on March 28, 2026. Without his commitment, our research center would not exist as we know it today. Once again, we say thank you and offer our heartfelt congratulations!

Since August, Lilly Spalt has been heading Occupational Health Management at the Max Delbrück Center. Her goal is to create a supportive and healthy work environment for all staff. This year, her focus is on mental health – a wide range of measures are planned.

Mina Gouti has been awarded a professorship at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. The appointment will strengthen her pioneering organoid research at the Max Delbrück Center and deepen collaboration with clinicians to advance personalized medicine.

Leif Si-Hun Ludwig has been awarded a prestigious Heisenberg professorship in stem cell dynamics and mitochondrial genomics by the the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité, a position funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

The Max Delbrück Center’s Communications and Marketing department has a new head: Tabea Rauscher has taken over the role from Jutta Kramm. With a passion for science and strategic communication, she is shaping the dialogue between research and society.

We mourn the sudden unexpected loss of Peer Bork, a formative figure who helped shape the center’s intellectual spirit and commitment to innovative life science. Bork went on to build an extraordinary international career, influencing modern biology far beyond Berlin.

Karen Christman, a Stiftung Charité Visiting Fellow at the Max Delbrück Center, is among the first researchers to have won a Humboldt Research Award under Germany’s Global Minds Initiative. The award will enable her to expand her research in Germany on bioengineering.