ERC’s 10th anniversary: EU-LIFE statement on the need for increased ERC budget
EU-LIFE, the alliance of research centres in life sciences congratulates the European Research Council (ERC) on its 10th anniversary and wishes to acknowledge publicly the key role of this European Commission initiative in promoting excellent basic research. In only a decade, the ERC has become a flagship for excellent scientific research in - and for - Europe which is key to innovation. This is particularly relevant because even though- and…
Kickoff for Pharmacoscopy – a novel tool for precision medicine
In light of the importance of research on precision, molecular, and personalized medicine, CeMM and the Medical University of Vienna hosted on March 6, 2017 a kick off meeting to celebrate the start of Pharmacoscopy, a novel high-content screening and imaging platform to break resistance of relapsed and refractory hematological malignancies - a true bench-to-bedside circle. This meeting presented and celebrated the collaborative project between…
Christoph Bock receives Overton Prize
We congratulate CeMM PI Christoph Bock on being awarded the 2017 Overton Prize of the International Society of Computational Biology (ISCB). Each year, this prestigious award is given to one early to mid-career scientist from any country who is recognized as an emerging leader in computational biology and bioinformatics. Christoph Bock has been one of the first computational biologists who dedicated his career to understanding epigenetics and…
CeMM statement on the importance of freedom of movement for the scientific discovery process
(Modern) civil societies rely on the sharing of goods and information that allow the best use of resources and labor for the common good and well-being of the people. At the heart of all innovation in human civilization is the scientific research process. No Ideas – No Scientific Progress: Progress in all scientific disciplines, whether in the natural sciences, or humanities, mathematics, engineering or medicine, dramatically relies on the…
LIBRA Workshop “Best Practice in Gender-Inclusive Recruitment Processes”
On January 26, 2017, a LIBRA Workshop on “Best Practice in Gender-Inclusive Recruitment Processes” with representatives of the partner institutes took place at CeMM in Vienna. It provided expert insights into the topic of unbiased recruitment with the goal to start discussions on best practices, and to define recommendations to remove gender barriers in hiring processes at the LIBRA partner institutes, especially for leading positions. LIBRA…
CeMM Director Giulio Superti-Furga new Member of Scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC)
Giulio Superti-Furga, Scientific Director of CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Professor for Medical Systems Biology of the Medical University of Vienna has been appointed Member of the Scientific Council of the ERC, on the 10th anniversary of its existence, for a function period of 4 years. The European Research Council is the most important and prestigious funding institution for basic…
Biomarker for oxidative stress plays a major role in hepatic inflammation
Diet-related diseases like non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are known to have a major inflammatory component. However, the molecular pathways linking diet-induced changes with inflammation remained elusive. In a new study, Christoph Binder’s Group at CeMM and the Medical University of Vienna identified crucial inflammatory processes in NAFLD and found that malondialdehyde (MDA), a biomarker for oxidative stress, plays a key role in the…
CALR-Mutation assay for MPN diagnosis now launched by QIAGEN
QIAGEN announced the European launch of a unique calreticulin (CALR) mutation assay to aid in establishing the diagnosis of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) The importance of CALR mutations in MPN was first described in December 2013 by the group of CeMM Principal Investigator Robert Kralovics. In April 2014 QIAGEN obtained the exclusive worldwide license rights to intellectual property and know-how from CeMM covering specific mutant alleles…
Breakthrough in diabetes research: Pancreatic cells produce insulin instead of glucagon upon artemisinin treatment
FDA-approved artemisinins, since decades used to treat malaria, transform glucagon-producing alpha cells in the pancreas into insulin producing cells – thereby acquiring features of beta cells, the cell type damaged in type 1 diabetes. Those groundbreaking results, published in Cell, provides the basis for a promising new approach towards a cure for type 1 diabetes. For years, researchers around the globe tried various approaches with stem- or…
Beyond the DNA: Comprehensive map of the human epigenome completed
The sequencing of the human genome was a milestone for biology and medicine – but not all is written in our genes. Scientists are now presenting a second chapter of the book of life: Over the last five years, a worldwide consortium of scientists has established epigenetic maps of 2,100 cell types. Within this coordinated effort, CeMM contributed detailed DNA methylation maps of the developing blood, opening up new perspectives for the…
The Stars over Babylon - S.M.A.R.T. Lecture by Mathieu Ossendrijver
This year´s S.M.A.R.T. Lecture was a truly exceptional experience for the audience: Mathieu Ossendrijver, professor for the history of ancient science at the Humboldt University in Berlin, presented his findings on astronomic calculations of ancient Babylonians in our fully booked lecture hall. From five cuneiform tablets, dating from 350 to 50 BCE, Ossendrijver decrypted a sophisticated calculation method to determine and predict Jupiter’s…
Missing link between hemolysis and infection found
Worldwide, millions of people suffer from hemolysis, the breakdown of red blood cells, such as those afflicted with sickle-cell disease, malaria or sepsis. These patients face an unprecedented risk of death from bacterial infections and the mechanism for this has remained unclear until now. In the latest edition of Nature Immunology, Sylvia Knapp’s Group at the CeMM and the Medical University of Vienna discovered how hemolysis causes infections…
Georg Winter, CeMM's new Principal Investigator, wins ASCINA award
Endowed by the Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy and awarded by the Network of "Austrian Scientists and Scholars in North America" (ASCINA), the prize rewards outstanding scientific achievements of Austrians performed in the United States. During the 13th Austrian Research and Innovation Talk (ARIT), on October 22nd, 2016, in Toronto, Georg Winter, as well as two other Austrian scientists who worked in the USA, received the…
Myelopro Diagnostics and Research GmbH obtains an exclusive worldwide license from CeMM to develop therapeutics, targeting mutated calreticulin protein in malignant diseases
CALR mutations have been discovered by the research team of Robert Kralovics at CeMM as highly disease-specific markers to a blood cancer called myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN). Recently, the relevance of CALR mutations have been recognized by the WHO, including them as one of the major diagnostic criteria. As a unique, disease-specific peptide, mutated CALR is also an attractive target to develop therapies. “This licensing agreement enables…
WWTF Life Science Call 2016 for Precision Medicine - Two grants awarded to research teams coordinated by Giulio Superti-Furga and Kaan Boztug
We are happy to announce that Giulio Superti-Furga, CeMM´s Scientific Director, and Kaan Boztug, Director of the newly founded Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Rare and Undiagnosed Diseases (LBI-RUD) and Adjunct PI at CeMM, together with their teams consisting of researchers from different biomedical disciplines and clinical scientists were awarded with 2 WWTF grants for precision medicine. This Life Science call addressed universities and…
