Heart

Dr. Gabriele G. Schiattarella has been awarded a W2 Professorship for Cardiometabolic Diseases at the Deutsches Herzzentrum der Charité. He will continue to study one of the biggest challenges in cardiology: heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

A group of Berlin researchers in collaboration with international scientists have found differences in heart inflammation caused by COVID-19, anti-COVID-19 vaccination, and non-COVID-19 myocarditis. The find paves the way for more personalized therapies, they report in “Nature Cardiovascular Research.”

Enno Klußmann of the Max Delbrück Center aims to help reducing the harmful consequences of high blood pressure by imitating a rare mutation. His plan to activate a specific enzyme called PDE3A to protect the heart and kidneys is now being funded with €400,000 by the Else Kröner-Fresenius Foundation.

In mid-September, researchers from all over the world gathered in Berlin to explore the current and future possibilities of magnetic resonance imaging. The annual symposium was hosted by the team of physicist Professor Thoralf Niendorf from the Max Delbrück Center.

A team in the Hübner and Diecke Labs at the Max Delbrück Center have shown how human and non-human primate hearts differ genetically. The study, published in “Nature Cardiovascular Research,” reveals evolutionary adaptations in human hearts and provides new insights into cardiac disease.

A team in the labs of Holger Gerhardt and Norbert Hübner at the Max Delbrück Center has elucidated how new arteries form, potentially helping to improve therapies aimed at regenerating heart muscle after a heart attack or stroke. The research was published in “Circulation Research.”

Gabriele Schiattarella researches the mechanisms of heart muscle weakness at the Max Delbrück Center and Deutsches Herzzentrum der Charité (DHZC). Now the International Society for Heart Research, a highly respected professional society, has named him an "Outstanding Investigator."

Grizzly bears in hibernation or a pineapple in an MRI scanner – at the “Science Day” at the “Robert Havemann” high school in Berlin-Karow, researchers from the Max Delbrück Center presented students of grades 11 and 12 unusual facets of their research.

Unlike humans, zebrafish can completely regenerate their hearts after injury. They owe this ability to the interaction between their nervous and immune systems, as researchers led by Suphansa Sawamiphak from the Max Delbrück Center now report in the journal “Developmental Cell.”

When the PRDM16 gene mutates, heart muscle cells undergo changes in their metabolism. This increases the risk of congenital heart failure in women more than men, as a ECRC research team led by Sabine Klaassen and Jirko Kühnisch reports in “Cardiovascular Research.”