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Friend or foe? Antiviral molecule kills liver cells during hepatitis

Viral hepatitis is a global health threat: More than five hundred million people worldwide are infected with Hepatitis B and C viruses. The pathogens have a detrimental effect on the liver, which manifests with a complex pathology that is largely unknown. In their most recent study, published in “Immunity”, CeMM researchers shed light on how this damage develops. 

This study, which is the result of an international collaborative network led by Andreas Bergthaler at CeMM, describes a surprising finding: Interferon, a defense protein against infections, which was thought to have mainly a protective function, contributes to the development of…

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EU-LIFE launches LIBRA - Top European research institutes move towards gender equality

LIBRA – the EU-LIFE alliance project to develop and implement gender equality in research – has been launched. The kick off meeting of this H2020 funded project took place on 27-28 October 2015 at Sitges, Spain. CeMM is one of the thirteen partners, who are going to contribute to the design and implementation of harmonised and tailored Gender Equality Plans at the research institutes’ level. 

Approximately half of the PhD students in Europe are women. However, the levels of women researchers decrease at the postdoctoral level and drop dramatically in leadership positions. These numbers demonstrate a dramatic waste of talent and resources in…

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Barbara Weitgruber, Claudia Lingner and Josef Pröll with the Directors of the two new Ludwig Boltzmann Institutes: Markus Mitterhauser and Kaan Botzug

Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Rare and Undiagnosed Diseases

We congratulate Kaan Boztug and his team whose proposal for the establishment of a Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Rare and Undiagnosed Diseases has been selected for funding out of 26 applications!

Kaan Boztug is Principal Investigator at CeMM and Associate Professor at the Medical University of Vienna. He is a specialist in Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, focusing his research on rare diseases in the field of immunology and hematology. In this context, he has published numerous widely acknowledged scientific publications revealing new monogenetic defects of hematopoiesis and of the immune system and their pathophysiology. Kaan has…

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Essential genes for the survival of human cells

In a combined effort researchers of Thijn Brummelkamp´s group at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) and the groups of Giulio Superti-Furga, Jacques Colinge (presently at the Institut de Recherche en Cancérologie de Montpellier), and Keiryn Bennett at CeMM identified about 1.700 genes being important for the survival of human cells. By conducting large scale mutagenesis analysis on two haploid human cell lines they found that approximately 10 % of all human genes are essential for correct functioning of the investigated cells. 

Gene essentially and synthetic lethality have so far only been studied extensively in model organisms, such as…

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5th SMART Lecture by Albert-László Barabási

On October 12th, we had the great pleasure to host Albert-László Barabási at CeMM. After several rounds of meetings with PhD students and faculty, as well as a stimulating discussion with invited artists in the brain lounge, Albert-László Barabási delivered the 5th SMART lecture. His talk on “Network Science: From the WWW to Human Diseases” attracted an exceptional audience of some 150 people. 

After a general introduction and welcome note by the Scientific Director Giulio Superti-Furga, the head of bioinformatics at CeMM, Jörg Menche, introduced the speaker in more detail, as he has worked as a postoc in his lab for over four years. In…

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Thank you to Rectorate of the Medical University of Vienna

CeMM would like to welcome the new Rector of the Medical University of Vienna, Prof. Dr. Markus Müller, and his team, and takes the occasion to thank the former Rector, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schütz, for his continues support over the last years. Rector Schütz played a crucial role in the development of CeMM, its location in the middle of the medical campus, and set the path for a fruitful collaboration, being always open for new ideas and initiatives, like the common launch of the Personal Genome and educational Project “Genom Austria”. The Medical University of Vienna is one of the key research partners of CeMM. We are looking forward to…

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A “hot” approach for understanding drug action and identifying new drug targets

How do successful drugs actually work? And how can we identify new targets for drug discovery to enable the development of novel potential therapeutics? A key challenge for scientists in academia and the pharmaceutical industry is to find out how small molecules such as drugs or cellular metabolites act within a cell – who are the mediators and effectors required for a drug or metabolite to exert their effect e.g. on cell proliferation, shape etc.? Based on the simple fact that interaction between a small molecule - such as a drug - and a given target protein increases the thermal stability of that protein, scientists at CeMM have developed a…

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Festive Lecture by George Church

How new genomic technologies will impact us all 

On 17 September 2015 a festive lecture held by geneticist George Church (Harvard Medical School) marked the beginning the GET Global Conference, hosted by CeMM in the context of Genom Austria. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Personal Genome Project, the conference brought together pioneers of personal genome sequencing and open science, discussing technological advances and associated ethical and societal aspects. 

George Church is one of the inventors of genome sequencing and an advocate of open science. He based his talk entitled How new genomic technologies will impact us all on…

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Obituary William E. Paul

It is with great sadness that we learn of the decease of Prof. Dr. William E. Paul, Chief of the Laboratory of Immunology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, USA. Bill Paul was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of CeMM from the very beginning and had a great influence on the development of our institute. We lose an extraordinary scientist and highly esteemed mentor. His advice, constructive criticism and encouraging words will be dearly missed by the CeMM Directors and by the entire CeMM Faculty. Our thoughts are with his family and collaborators as well the large number of disciples. 

As a scientist…

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Visit of H.E. Sergio Mattarella and H.E. Heinz Fischer at CeMM

On September 16, 2015 CeMM was honored by the visit of H.E. Sergio Mattarella, President of the Republic of Italy, and H.E. Heinz Fischer, President of the Republic of Austria. It was the first official visit of President Mattarella to Austria and we are very grateful for this unique opportunity to present CeMM and its research highlights to such an honorable audience.

The visit started with a short introduction to CeMM’s art façade created by Peter Kogler and a stopover on the CeMM terrace to enjoy the beautiful view over Vienna. The guests then entered the CeMM Brain Lounge, where Italian students and postdocs had the opportunity to…

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