New at the Max Delbrück Center

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.

Since August 2026, Stefanie Seltmann has headed our new Data, Information and Publication Services department. In this interview, she explains what her team does and why our researchers, and science as a whole, stand to benefit.

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 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.

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.

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.

Starting in May, Anne Ziemke will head the staff unit Strategic Programs, Resources, and Implementation at the Max Delbrück Center. She aims to further improve the conditions for excellent research and to forge closer collaboration with other research institutions.

Caroline Schweiger-Eisbacher is the new Scientific Advisor to the Vice President of Helmholtz Health, Maike Sander. In this role, Schweiger-Eisbacher helps facilitate collaboration and communication across the Helmholtz Health network.

Practiced in the art of bringing diverse groups of people together, Dilek Güven joins the Max Delbrück Center as our new Diversity Coordinator. “We are already diverse. I want to find ways to further our sense of togetherness,” she says.

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.