In March 2024, Dr. Simon Haas received a funding commitment from the German Research Association (DFG) for a Heisenberg professorship in systems hematology at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH). Haas, who leads a lab within the joint research focus of the BIH, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and the Max Delbrück Center, is…
Dr. Christian Meisel, a physician and neuroscientist at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, has been awarded funding for an endowed chair of computational neurology from the Hermann and Lilly Schilling Foundation for Medical Research. The Schilling Foundation has been funding outstanding…
New findings reveal that the body undergoes significant, systematic changes across multiple organs during prolonged periods of fasting. The results demonstrate evidence of health benefits beyond weight loss, but also show that any potentially health-altering changes appear to occur only after three days without food.
In January 2024, Prof. Peter N. Robinson will take up an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship for Artificial Intelligence at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH). Robinson, a bioinformatician, is a pioneer in the computational genome and phenotype analysis of genetic diseases. His major work has been the development of the Human…
The European Molecular Biology Organization has selected Leif. S. Ludwig from the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) and the Max Delbrück Center to become an EMBO Young Investigator. The program provides support to outstanding young life scientists.
Twice a year, the start-up competition Gründungswettbewerb – Digitale Innovationen by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection's (BMWK) honors the best ideas of innovative start-ups that are based on digital technologies. The award supports start-ups in the early stages and emphasizes their key role as drivers of innovation…
With its innovative ultrasound procedure, the spin-off PoroUS GmbH, in which Charité holds a stake via its technology service provider Ascenion GmbH, enables cost-effective, X-ray-free and precise early detection of osteoporosis. The Potsdam-based start-up, led by Dr Julia Eschenbrenner (CEO), Jonas Massmann (CTO) and Charité employee Prof Dr Kay…
From 2024, the Federal Government and the State of Berlin will fund the establishment of the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Berlin. The new site is a cooperation between DKFZ and Charité, BIH, and Max Delbrück Center aimed at closely integrating clinical and translational cancer research.
Blood cancer is often driven by mutations in stem cells, which are key target cells in the search for innovative early-stage therapies. Dr. Simon Haas, head of a lab within the joint research focus of the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH), Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and the Max Delbrück Center, is seeking to understand…
Two to five percent of all people are affected by Raynaud's phenomenon: In cold or stressful conditions, the small blood vessels that supply the skin constrict and the fingers or toes turn white. First described by Maurice Raynaud in 1862, scientists from the Berlin Institute of Health at the Charité (BIH), together with colleagues from the United…
One shot in the arm, and the whole body is protected. But how? For one thing, the immune system produces antibodies and cells that patrol the entire organism by traveling through the bloodstream. On the other hand, the body builds up a local immune memory in various organs. This is shown by a recent study of the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin…
A team of researchers has uncovered a previously unknown compensatory mechanism found in liver disease. If Kupffer cells (KCs), a specific kind of immune cells found in the liver, become impaired by tissue scarring, immune cells originating in the bone marrow flow to the organ, where they form larger cell clusters to perform the same function.…
In the fight against many common diseases, there is a huge need for safe and effective drugs. Maik Pietzner, a group leader in the Computational Medicine Group at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH), sees genes as a key to developing new therapies, because most diseases have a genetic background. Using a sophisticated strategy that…
Bartter syndrome type 3 is the result of several structural variants in the genome. By using long-read sequencing, Janine Altmüller and her team from the Max Delbrück Center, the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) and University Hospital Cologne mapped out the rare disease in unprecedented detail. They have now reported their findings in…
Conventional vaccines usually contain antigens – components of the respective pathogens – that bind to receptors on the surface of their target cells in order to trigger the disease. Scientists at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) and the Max Delbrück Center have now discovered that antigen variants with low receptor binding can be…
All cells have their own power plants, called mitochondria. There are often more than 100 mitochondria per cell and each possesses their own genome, which in turn contains genes responsible for energy production. If errors creep into these genes, this can cause problems in the cell and result in diseases. Scientists from the Berlin Institute of…
Biochemist and physician Dr. Leif S. Ludwig (40) from the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) and the Max Delbrück Center has been named a recipient of the 2023 Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, as the German Research Foundation (DFG) announced yesterday. A total of ten scientists will be recognized with the award, valued at €200,000 each, which…
Scientists from the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH), along with colleagues from the United Kingdom, have found clues as to how we maintain constant blood sugar levels after we have eaten. Analyzing the DNA of nearly 55,000 participants from different studies, they identified ten genomic regions containing genetic variants responsible…
Do intelligent people think faster? Researchers at the BIH and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, together with a colleague from Barcelona, made the surprising finding that participants with higher intelligence scores were only quicker when tackling simple tasks, while they took longer to solve difficult problems than subjects with lower IQ…
An interdisciplinary team led by Prof. Angela Relógio, a scientist at Charité’s Molecular Cancer Research Center (MKFZ) and Institute for Theoretical Biology and the MSH Medical School Hamburg, has developed a non-invasive method for profiling a person’s unique circadian rhythm. Starting with a simple saliva sample, the team of experts can create a…
We already know in great detail how proteins are encoded in the DNA sequence of our genes. However, our understanding how one gene is active in one cell, but inactive in another is much more limited. While it's clear that the information for this gene activity is also “programmed” in DNA, we have yet to crack the regulatory code. Daniel Ibrahim, a…
Critically ill COVID-19 patients often have antibodies in their blood that bind to the body’s own structures, so-called autoantibodies. Scientists from the BIH at Charité and the Max Delbrück Center have now discovered that these autoantibodies frequently bind to not just one but multiple targets. This surprising finding calls into question the…
Bone is the second most commonly transplanted tissue after blood, with about two million bone transplants performed worldwide each year – but often with only moderate therapeutic success. Cell-based therapies could provide an alternative approach to transplantation. Together with colleagues from Paracelsus Medical Private University (PMU) Salzburg,…
The Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) was officially founded exactly 10 years ago today, March 25, 2013. The aim was to advance medical translation and thus accelerate the transfer of basic research findings from the bench to the bedside. The BIH at Charité is now the translational research unit of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and forms its…
Clinical trials are the “backbone of evidence-based medicine”: This is where new drugs and treatments are tested on humans for the first time. The results of such trials are therefore highly relevant. But unfortunately many clinical trial results from German universities are not published at all or are registered too late – and if they are…
An APP can help in deciding whether conspicuous skin changes are an infection with the monkeypox virus: The user answers a questionnaire and uploads a photo of the skin change. The APP uses artificial intelligence (AI) methods for an initial assessment and provides users with relevant information on possible next steps, e.g. testing or vaccination,…
February 28, 2023 is Rare Disease Day. So-called rare diseases afflict about 4 million people in Germany alone – and some 350 million people globally. Most of these rare diseases lack effective treatments and are fully or partially genetically determined. But new developments in gene- and cell-based therapies are offering new hope. The Berlin…
New research has identified hundreds of proteins that might contribute to the onset of common, chronic metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, and consequently pathways to potential treatments.
When women suffer migraine attacks, it is often just before or during their monthly period. A team of researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin has now identified a possible explanation. According to their study, published in the journal Neurology,* women who experience migraines have higher levels of CGRP during menstruation. CGRP is a…
For a few years now, a triple combination therapy with elexacaftor, tezacaftor, and ivacaftor has been available for cystic fibrosis patients. Called CFTR modulator therapy, it responds well in most patients, but even individuals with the same CFTR gene mutation may experience different treatment responses. The reasons for this are now being…
