NewsBIH Academy
Promoting young talent with a focus on digital translation and international exchange
Together with the Biomedical Innovation Academy of the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH), Stiftung Charité 2024 has developed two new funding programs. The first fellows have now been selected.
A bridge between science and medicine is needed to ensure that scientific findings are quickly translated into medical applications, e.g. by doctors conducting research. They play a key role in the further development of the healthcare system and ensure its innovative strength - through their work, new diagnostic procedures and innovative therapies can be developed and tested. Since 2011, the BIH Charité Clinician Scientist Program (CSP) has offered physicians in specialist training a structured framework for combining clinical work and research through contractually defined research periods.
Since 2024, there have been two new funding programmes supported by Stiftung Charité:
The AI/XR Digital Clinician Scientists is part of the BIH Charité Digital Clinician Scientist Program, which specifically supports physicians with research projects that integrate digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and extended reality (XR) into clinical practice. Doctors from Charité can apply to become AI/XR Digital Clinician Scientists. In order to help intensify the collaboration of fellows with international experts, Stiftung Charité is providing a total of 20 internationalization grants with a funding amount of €5,000 each. By funding research stays, collaboration on joint projects “side by side” is made possible, either through stays of scientists in the partner laboratory abroad (outbound) or through the visit of the external partner in the home laboratory (inbound). The requirement for the application for the internationalization grant is that the applicant is currently supported in the BIH Charité (Digital) Clinician Scientist Program.
The first fellows of the new program have now been selected:
Fellows in the AI/ XR Digital Clinician Scientists
Dr. med. Charlie Alexander Hamm, PhD (Department of Radiology and Pediatric Radiology) is developing an AI-supported application for the early detection of prostate cancer based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). His model combines radiological, clinical and genetic data to enable more precise and early diagnosis in the future and avoid unnecessary biopsies.
Dr. Mikhail Protopopov (Department of Gastroenterology, Infectious Diseases and Rheumatology, including Clinical Nutrition) is also working on the AI-supported optimization of MRI diagnostics. His deep learning model is designed to automatically detect inflammatory changes in the spine and distinguish them from degenerative changes. The aim is to improve the diagnosis of axial spondyloarthritis in order to enable faster and more precise patient care.
Recipients of the Internationalization Grants
PD Dr. med. Woo Ri Chae (Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy) will conduct studies on the antidepressant effect of GLP-1 receptor agonists at Aarhus University in Denmark using data from the Danish registers. The purpose of the stay is to learn new methodological approaches and to intensify collaboration.
Dr. med. Steffen Fuchs (Department of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology) is travelling to the University of Ghent in Belgium to learn new methods for cell-free RNA sequencing. His project is investigating whether circular RNA can be used as a marker for the treatment of neuroblastomas. The method is then to be established in Berlin.
Dr. med. Jan Wandrey (Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine) is working on improving prediction models for postoperative pain as part of an international collaboration. His research stay at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, USA, will provide methodological insights into large-scale observational studies.
Dr. med. Marco Zierhut (Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy) will develop a metacognitive training program for psychosis at the Hanoi Mental Hospital in Vietnam, which will be adapted to local needs and anchored in the Vietnamese healthcare system through train-the-trainer workshops.
The CSP at the BIH is one of the oldest Clinician Scientist Programs in Germany and, with currently around 160 fellows and over 300 alumni, by far the largest of its kind. The Berlin program initiated a cultural change in German university medicine, set nationwide standards in terms of program structure and quality and was recommended by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as a “best practice model”. Because the BIH Charité CSP is constantly developing and diversifying its funding, it is now possible to provide targeted support to clinician scientists in all career phases through specific funding lines, e.g. with the Digital Clinician Scientist Program (DCSP) initiated in 2019 to promote digital solutions in medicine.
The BIH, together with Stiftung Charité, congratulates all grant recipients and wishes them every success in implementing their projects. The current call for Internationalization Grants runs until 20th May 2025.