Women in Science

Jana Wolf draws on experimental data and the growing knowledge of cellular mechanisms to translate disease processes into mathematical models. Her models aim to represent the complexity of life as realistically as possible and to help develop therapies that are precisely tailored to the patient.

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.

Biomedicine today is awash with images and the tide is rising. Dagmar Kainmüller is teaching computers to see so that they can help with analyzing the image data. In the process, artificial intelligence is throwing up some unexpected questions that are opening up new lines of research in molecular biology.

On Girls' Day, researchers at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) shared their thoughts on bioinformatics and let the students work with data sets and programs themselves. The bottom line: research is fun – even though or even because the tasks are complex.

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.

In muscular dystrophies, there can also be a deterioration in the heart's function. For a study on such cardiac involvement, the German Society for Muscular Dystrophies (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Muskelkranke e.V.) has awarded ECRC researchers Jeanette Schulz-Menger and Edyta Blaszczyk the Ulrich Brodeßer FSHD Prize 2022.

Biochemist Sabrina Geisberger researches the effects of salt consumption on our health at the Max Delbrück Center. We asked her five questions.

Pia Rautenstrauch won a data challenge using a "deep learning" model. For researchers in the field of machine learning, such competitions are as important as publications – and they can provide insights into how cells in the human body differ from each other.

Mina Gouti uses stem cells to create three-dimensional cell structures called organoids that closely resemble some aspects of real human tissues. The organoids are well suited for testing new drugs to combat neuromuscular diseases and for developing personalized therapies to treat severely ill patients.