New at the Max Delbrück Center

Maike Sander has been selected to direct the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC). The Supervisory Board appointed the diabetes researcher and professor of pediatrics and cellular and molecular medicine as the Scientific Director and Chair of the Board on June 16, 2022.

Hanna Zimmermann has spent years studying how the retina can be used to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases. She is now starting her own research group, the Applied Research on the Visual System Lab, at the ECRC – and has also been named a junior professor at Charité. She will receive an endowed professorship from the Einstein Center Digital Future for this purpose.

In early April, Katja Simon became the head of the “Autophagy in the Immune System” laboratory at the MDC. She and her team are planning to research how long-lived immune cells use the process of self-digestion to continually renew themselves. Patients may soon benefit from their findings.

Her world is a gray one. Dr. Séverine Kunz uses electron microscopy to obtain black and white images from inside the cells and subcellular structures. She has dedicated herself to this hidden world and was recently named head of the MDC’s Electron Microscopy Platform.

Biotechnologist Claudia Crocini is starting a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at the MDC in January 2022. Her research examines how the biomechanical properties of tissue ensure a healthy heartbeat. This might open up a new avenue for treating heart disease.

Cancer immunologist Lydia Dyck has started her Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at the MDC. Her goal is to find new ways for the immune system to recognize and eliminate cancer cells, as tumors often evade the body’s defense mechanisms.

Structural biologists use cutting-edge technologies such as cryo-electron microscopy to gain insights into the architecture of molecules. At the MDC, a research group in structural biology is about to start work. Its leader, Misha Kudryashev, wants to probe the secrets of membrane protein complexes.

Dr. Janine Altmüller’s goal is to raise the profile of genomics research in Berlin. Since July 1 she has headed the BIH and MDC’s joint Genomics Platform, providing support to Berlin researchers and honing new methods and technologies.

Fabian Coscia is the head of the junior research group on Spatial Proteomics at the MDC. He uses artificial intelligence to analyze cancer cell proteomes – the entirety of the proteins produced by the cells. Now, he wants to develop this method further as part of the MSTARS project.

The new cryo-electron microscope on the Buch campus is four meters tall and captures images of tiny, nanometer-scale structures. The MDC has constructed a special building to house this feat of technology, which is now available to Berlin’s structural biology community. Dr. Christoph Diebolder of Charité heads the facility.