On Tuesday, March 1, Rector Markus Müller, Vice Rector Michaela Fritz, and the CeMM Directors Giulio Superti-Furga and Anita Ender have signed a framework agreement which allows the mutual usage of specific infrastructure and further strengthens scientific collaborations and common projects.

CeMM’s research is strongly oriented towards medical needs and integrates research on fundamental biological processes with clinical expertise to gain new insights into human pathophysiology and develop innovative diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. The research focus is on cancer, inflammation, infection and metabolism. The Medical University of Vienna is the most important research partners of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Institute and plays a key role in the career development of the CeMM students and Faculty. The MedUni Vienna is a highly dynamic research organization, competent in treatment of a very wide area of human ailments with a tradition of innovation going back centuries. It provides a perfect environment for modern research initiatives on precision medicine centered around CeMM’s cutting edge technologies.

Several common projects of strategic importance have already been established between CeMM and the Medical University of Vienna in the past years. A highly productive collaboration has been established over the years with the University Clinic for Internal Medicine I, for example with the pioneering personal medicine project EXACT lead by the chairman Christoph Zielinski, or with very intensive and productive set of studies involving the Clinical Division of Hematology and Hemostaseology, that already resulted in some forty joint publications. Another centerpiece of the CeMM-MedUni Vienna partnership is the joint Biomedical Sequencing Facility (BSF), that is a critical component of most precision medicine initiatives on campus. The Vienna Center for Rare and Undiagnosed Diseases (CeRUD) has been established by the two institutions to pool resources and competencies required to provide individual suffering from rare conditions with the best possible interdisciplinary diagnostic analysis and care. This includes interdisciplinary clinical care involving many disciplines that are represented at the campus of the General Hospital Vienna and the Medical University Vienna and in future will expand to involve a yet larger network of researchers. In 2014 “Genom Austria”, a Personal Genome Projects, has been started to contribute to the public discussion about genomes in science, medicine and society, preparing the cultural ground for informed citizens facing genomic information including and beyond the personalized medicine prospect. 

CeMM is looking forward to continuing this highly successful relationship on many more collaborative projects with the clear goal of improving medical practice for the benefit of patients and training researchers in molecular medicine.