CeMM had the pleasure to host the Federal President of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, and the Mayor of the City of Vienna, Michael Häupl on October 3, 2017. The guests came to our institute on the occasion of CeMM´s 10th anniversary, which we celebrated in September, and to inaugurate our PhD Gallery.

Welcomed by CeMM Directors Giulio Superti-Furga and Anita Ender and cheered by the entire staff of CeMM, the guests were accompanied to the CeMM Time Capsule, the first stop of their visit. After receiving one of the notebooks with the invitation to write down their thoughts and ideas, President Van der Bellen and Mayor Häupl met PhD…

On September 29, 2017, the CeMM members went on the annual outing of the institute, to start the academic year with a community experience, to strengthen the relationships with colleagues, and to broaden our horizon. This year, we visited Göttweig Abby and the Schallaburg, both spectacular historic sites in a picturesque landscape.

On perfect weather, the trip started with a visit of Göttweig Abby, also known as “Lower Austria´s Montecassino” for its beautiful location on top of a hill. The Benedictine monastery, founded in the 11^th century, is full of valuable collections of religious engravings, coins, antiquities and musical manuscripts,…

CeMM is member of EU-LIFE (www.eu-life.eu). EU-LIFE is a European alliance of research centers of excellence in life sciences, whose mission is to support and strengthen European research excellence. Representing over 7,200 scientists and staff distributed in more than 500 research groups across Europe, EU-LIFE is a strong representative of the scientific community throughout Europe.

In a position paper we announce our key priorities for the next Framework Program for Research and Development (FP9) that will run from 2021 to 2027, which can be summarized as follows: 

• To double the investment by the European Commission to 150 billion euro…

Blistered dancing feet, tissues wet with tears of joy and the taste of cake still on our lips: the 10th anniversary celebration on September 12, 2017 at the Aula der Wissenschaften was CeMM´s biggest, most spectacular and memorable event we had since the opening of our research building. 

We thank everybody who celebrated with us and who contributed to the success of CeMM over the past years! It is your support and friendship that motivates us to do the best possible research. 

Exhausted but happy, we summarize CeMM´s decennial jubilee as follows: Moderator Annie Kay wonderfully guided the audience through a mixture of overwhelming light…

Every tissue has its own pattern of active alleles (the gene variants inherited from the mother or father),. For the first time, scientists were able to show that the differential allele activity is regulated by tissue-specific, regulatory DNA elements known as enhancers – a process that could also be involved in many diseases. The results of the former CeMM group of Denise Barlow were published in the high-profile open access journal eLife.

Every gene in (almost) every cell of the body is present in two variants – so called alleles: one is deriving from the mother, the other one from the father. In most cases both alleles are active and…