Bioengineering

Helmholtz-funded projects highlight a new focus at the Max Delbrück Center on biomedical engineering. By combining biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and engineering, basic research can be more quickly translated into therapies.

This year, the Pre-GoBio program is supporting two planned spin-offs. Paul Schöpe aims to bring a drug targeting colorectal cancer metastases to market. And Ines Lahmann will further develop NMJCare, a model that can be used to test therapies for neuromuscular diseases.

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.

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.

Researchers led by Michael Kaminski report in “Molecular Therapy” that they have used base editing to repair mutations that cause ADPKD. The approach reduced liver cysts in mice.

Ines Lahmann explains how organoids could change medical research in a podcast called ‘Forschungsquartett’. Listen to the interview with detektor.fm editor Esther Stephan (in German).

The Helmholtz Association has approved €30.8 million in funding for the Center for AI–Accelerated Molecular Innovations in Medicine to be located at the Max Delbrück Center. Researchers will use new technologies to develop AI-driven strategies for precision treatment and prevention.

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 Helmholtz Association is pooling its commitment to prevention research with the launch of the Helmholtz Health Prevention Task Force. In a strategy paper published in “Nature Medicine,“ the committee outlines initial concepts for integrating prevention more effectively into medical practice.

At his upcoming MDC Lecture, Dr. Sai Reddy will discuss his research into reprogramming immune cells to better fight disease, and how he was at the right place at the right time to help pioneer the emerging fields of systems and synthetic immunology.