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© Michael Sazel

Prof. Dr. Peter Schuster

President of the Austrian Academy of Science

“The goal of CeMM is to perform cutting-edge research and to break a path towards a new kind of medicine that takes advantage of the large body of knowledge from present day life sciences for diagnostic, preventive, and therapeutic purposes. Modern genomics, proteomics, and systems biology are indeed continuously collecting a wealth of highly relevant data, which have not yet been exploited for human health.

Close cooperation between CeMM and medical sciences at the General Hospital of Vienna (AKH) housing the clinics of Medical University of Vienna was and is considered to be indispensable for the success of the new institute. Thanks to strong support from the local government of the Community of Vienna, the Federal Government of Austria, and the Medical University of Vienna the construction of the building for CeMM can now begin.

In 2004, the academy succeeded in appointing Giulio Superti-Furga as director of CeMM, who has since done a marvelous job. He succeeded in recruiting an excellent crew of enthusiastically motivated young scientists. In a recent ‘Science Day’ the CeMM groups presented their excellent scientific achievements to the public and discussed future plans for the work at the institute. The present volume is the first CeMM official report and testifies that research of high scientific standards is performed already under the suboptimal conditions of the interim accommodation in small rented laboratories.

In the name of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and on my own behalf I would like to use this opportunity to congratulate the director for the work he has done in the past and to wish him and the entire crew of CeMM all the best for a brilliant future in the current rather modest home as well as in the forthcoming new building at the AKH.

Science needs researchers that are willing and enjoy taking the risk to explore new scientific territory, and molecular medicine has plenty of opportunities to proceed into the unknown.”