WWTF-Grant worth 1.6 Million Euros awarded to new CeMM Group Leader
The sixth call for “Vienna Research Groups for Young Investigators”, a founding programme of the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWFT) addresses Vienna based research institutions that intend to hire an excellent young researcher from abroad. This year, it was awarded to Jörg Menche, who will establish a new research group at CeMM to promote the emerging field of network medicine to investigate rare diseases.
The topic of this year´s WWTF´s founding call “Computational Biosciences” appeared all but customized to Jörg Menche´s scientific focus: A theoretical physicist by training, he works since his postdoc period on computational…
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CeMM at Vienna Ball of Sciences
“Thank you” to the organizers of the 2016 Science Ball and Dr. Michael Häupl for hosting the second Ball of Sciences in the City Hall of Vienna. It was again a wonderful event, which we hope will continue in 2017 and beyond. In Vienna, over 400 balls are staged each winter, and the Austrian ball culture has a long tradition. For CeMM, and our special guest, world-famous structural biologist Dr. Nieng Yan from the Tsinghua University in Bejing, it was a highlight of the ball season. It values our profession and the importance of science for society.
We enjoyed very much and promise to come again!
What makes us unique: Long non-coding RNAs displays higher expression variation than “classic” genes
Every human expresses a unique set of genes. This is a long known fact for “classic” protein-coding genes, but little was known about long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) genes, that surprisingly outnumber protein-coding genes in the human genome. A new study, performed by CeMM researchers in collaboration with MUW researchers and published in “Genome Biology”, now shows that the expression state of lncRNA genes is more highly variable compared to protein-coding genes, between different individuals. As a result, human individuality can be seen more readily in the altered expression states of lncRNA genes than in proteins made by protein-coding genes.…
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First single-cell transcriptomes of pancreas cells established
The pancreas is a crucial organ for eating behavior, digestion and metabolism and it plays a major role in the development of diabetes. In so called “Langerhans Islets”, specialized groups of cells precisely regulate blood sugar. But they are hard to study, only a few molecular markers are known to differentiate those pancreatic cell types. With the first single cell transcriptomes, established by Stefan Kubicek and Christoph Bock at CeMM, a new powerful tool for future investigations has been created to overcome those problems.
Their name is no coincidence: Cells of Langerhans-Islets are distributed throughout the pancreatic tissue in small…
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Giulio Superti-Furga @ TEDxLinz
We are proud to present the first TEDx Talk of our Scientific Director Giulio Superti Furga:
The Human 2.0 - Genome Imperfection and the Garden of Eden
We are becoming the first generation of living beings in billions of years that knows its genetic code and can change it and with it the fate of the planet. Is humanity – and life on earth – at a turning point? Are we walking towards the Garden of Eden or turning our backs to it forever?
In this talk, Giulio Superti-Furga reports on his experiences as first participant of the "Genom Austria" project, where he acts as chair of steering boards. Beeing part of the Global Network of Personal…
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Two ERC Starting Grants awarded to CeMM Principal Investigators Andreas Bergthaler and Christoph Bock
It is with great pleasure to announce that the European Research Council has awarded ERC Starting Grants to two Principal Investigators in 2015. CeMM congratulates Andreas Bergthaler and Christoph Bock and their teams for receiving this prestigious and well-endowed grants!
Andreas Bergthaler joined CeMM in 2011. He studied Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, and undertook graduate and postgraduate research with Hans Hengartner and Rolf Zinkernagel at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, followed by postdoctoral positions with Daniel Pinschewer at the University of Geneva and with Alan Aderem at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle.…
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…
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…
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…