Research Highlights

Perceiving warmth requires input from a surprising source: cool receptors. The finding published in Neuron by neuroscientists at the MDC challenges the theory that dedicated neurons convey either warm or cool sensations to the brain.

For the first time ever, researchers are looking at the molecular processes in the cell’s skeleton – the cytoskeleton – from a bird’s eye perspective. These processes are important for cell movement and cell shape formation. In Nature Cell Biology, an MDC team shows how cells coordinate such processes at the right place and time.

What goes on inside and between individual cells during the very earliest stages of tumor development? Single cell sequencing technologies and a mouse model have enabled researchers to comprehensively map the cellular diversity of whole salivary gland tumors and trace the path of cancer stem cells.

Scientists at the MDC have discovered stem cells responsible for the most common form of kidney cancer. The team of Walter Birchmeier has found a way to block the growth of these tumors in three models of the disease.

PCAWG, the largest cancer research consortium in the world, has set itself the task of improving our understanding of genetic mutations in tumors. A new study by the international research group, to which the MDC substantially contributed, is now being published in the journal Nature.

MDC researchers established a new model to study neuromuscular development and disorders. For the first time two distinct human tissues co-developed in the lab from one progenitor cell type and self-organized into a complex, functional neuromuscular organoid.

Scientists have discovered a new subtype of muscle stem cells. These cells have the ability to build and regenerate new muscles, making them interesting targets for the development of gene therapies.

New insights into preventing herpes infections have been published in Nature Communications. Researchers from the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB) at the MDC used single-cell RNA sequencing to better understand the viral infections.

When the adrenal gland produces too much aldosterone, this often leads to high blood pressure and kidney damage (hyperaldosteronism). It has only recently emerged that several patients harbor a mutation in the gene for the ClC-2 chloride channel. Researchers led by Professor Thomas Jentsch have now been able to show for the first time how the altered channels cause the disease. Their results are reported in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) have developed a method enabling the complete sequence of messenger RNA molecules including their unique ends, which are called poly(A) tails.