Genetic mosaicism more common than thought

"It is simply astounding how much previously undiscovered heterogeneity there is in our genomes"

30-May-2024 - Blood stem cells from healthy people show chromosomal changes, as researchers from the Max Delbrück Center and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory report. This suggests that genetic mosaics could contribute to age-related diseases. In a study led by Professor Jan Korbel, senior scientist ...

Design organoids with light

Organoids help researchers understand biological processes in health and disease

01-Nov-2023 - They look like thunderclouds in pinhead format: organoids. The three-dimensional cell cultures play an important role in medical and clinical research because they reproduce tissue structures and organ functions in the Petri dish. Scientists can use them to understand how diseases arise, organs ...

Milestone: Researchers have generated primordial germ cells from stem cells – a world’s first

A big step toward producing rhino gametes

13-Dec-2022 - To save the northern white rhinoceros from extinction, the BioRescue team is racing to create lab-grown egg and sperm cells of the critically endangered subspecies. The team has now reported a milestone in “Science Advances”: they have generated primordial germ cells from stem cells – a world’s ...

Pop-up factories beneath the cell membrane

Scientists have long regarded the cytosol liquid inside a cell as a large “swimming pool” in which everything floats around freely: But it seems that previously unknown structures

17-Mar-2022 - In a study published in Cell, MDC researchers show how a cell is able to process hundreds of signals simultaneously. Andreas Bock and his colleagues believe their findings will open up a whole new field of research in cell biology. A living cell is exposed to a variety of stimuli. Countless ...

How cells move and don’t get stuck

New insight for developmental biology and potential cancer treatment

22-Jan-2021 - Theoretical physicists from Berlin teamed up with experimental physicists from Munich to determine the precise mechanics involved in cell motility. Cell velocity, or how fast a cell moves, is known to depend on how sticky the surface is beneath it, but the precise mechanisms of this relationship ...

Bayer Early Excellence in Science Award 2010: EUR 30,000 for young research scientists

29-Nov-2010 - The winners of the Bayer Early Excellence in Science Award 2010 have been announced. The prizes, each worth EUR 10,000, have been awarded by an independent scientific committee of the Bayer Science & Education Foundation. The Bayer foundation presents the Bayer Early Excellence in Science Award ...

'Runaway' development implicated in loss of function of the aging brain

20-Jul-2010 - The brain undergoes rapid growth and development in the early years of life and then degenerates as we progress into old age, yet little is known about the biological processes that distinguish brain development and aging. In a report published in Genome Research, researchers have identified a ...

New Mechanism for Cardiac Arrhythmia discovered

01-Oct-2008 - It has long been thought that virus infections can cause cardiac arrhythmia. But why has not been understood. Ulrike Lisewski, Dr. Yu Shi, Michael Radke and Professor Michael Gotthardt of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch, Germany, have now discovered the molecular ...