On November 1, 2022, Prof. Maike Sander will take over as Scientific Director and Chair of the Board of Berlin’s Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC). The Supervisory Board of the MDC formally appointed her to the post on Thursday, June 16, 2022. The MDC, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, has been a Privileged Partner of the BIH since the Institute’s integration into Charité. The internationally renowned researcher and experienced science manager Maike Sander will be succeeding Prof. Thomas Sommer, who has directed the MDC on an interim basis since 2019.
“We very warmly welcome Prof. Maike Sander as the Scientific Director of our Privileged Partner, the MDC,” says Prof. Christopher Baum, Chair of the BIH Board of Directors and Chief Translational Research Officer of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. “We look forward to working closely with her to further expand Berlin’s biomedical research landscape.”
“At the same time, we would like to thank Prof. Thomas Sommer for the trusting collaboration over the past three years,” Baum adds. It has been a special pleasure and privilege for us to advance the joint projects of the BIH and MDC.” These have included, in particular, the construction of the Käthe Beutler Building in Berlin-Buch, where BIH and MDC research groups collaborate on scientific projects, or the establishment of the joint focus area “Single-Cell Technologies for Personalized Medicine,” which brings together researchers from the BIH, MDC and Charité.
Since 2019, Maike Sander has been a regular guest in Berlin as a BIH Einstein Visiting Fellow. Her host is Prof. Birgit Sawitzki, head of the Translational Immunology Department at the BIH and Charité. Their collaboration, funded by Stiftung Charité, has focused on the topic of “Niche signaling in diabetic beta cell failure: a paradigm for deciphering the role of cellular metabolism in immune-tissue cell communication.” Together, they are investigating how communication between immune and islet cells affects the development of type 2 diabetes. Sawitzki is pleased to know that her colleague is now close by: “Maike Sander has always brought along new ideas during her stays in Berlin.”
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