In crisis, the nucleus calls antioxidant enzymes to the rescue. The nucleus being metabolically active is a profound paradigm shift with implications for cancer research.

A typical human cell is metabolically active, roaring with chemical reactions that convert nutrients into energy and useful products that sustain life. These reactions also create reactive oxygen species, dangerous by-products like hydrogen peroxide which damage the building blocks of DNA in the same way oxygen and water corrode metal and form rust. Just how buildings collapse from the cumulative effect of rust, reactive oxygen species threatens a genome’s integrity.

Cells…

On 8 May 2023, CeMM held its 16th Landsteiner Lecture featuring keynote speaker Benjamin F. Cravatt, Professor, and Norton B. Gilula Chair of Chemical Biology at the Department of Chemistry of The Scripps Research Institute (USA).

The event opened with “Les Tecchler”, the first duet performed by cellist Matthias Bartolomey and violinist and mandola player Klemens Bittmann, whose music style emphasizes the spontaneity and improvisation of jazz, incorporating rock elements, grooves, ballads, and fast up-tempo compositions.

CeMM Scientific Director Giulio Superti-Furga gave a welcome address, followed by the Denise P. Barlow Award Ceremony,…

From 7-8 May 2023 the annual CeMM Alumni event took place in Vienna. 

We started with a nice, informal Dinner at the old AKH campus on Sunday, and continued with an Alumni Gathering on Monday at CeMM. This included an update of activities by the Alumni Board, mentor-mentee meetings during the day, and an interesting workshop on decision making with guest speaker Jafar Rezaei, from the Delft University of Technology NL. In the evening Alumnae and Alumni also joined the CeMM Landsteiner Lecture by Benjamin Cravatt from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, in the festive hall of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. 

We thank the CeMM…

Making progress, innovating, and finding solutions to global challenges requires extensive and intensive basic research across multiple fields. To make new discoveries, we must put in the effort, exertion, and brainpower required. But research does not simply start and end. Rather, we insert ourselves into a chain of knowledge seekers. The foundations of our present research and wealth were laid already by many people in the past. The CeMM Research Report is always unique and this year, in its 16th edition, we pay tribute to these great minds who have paved the way for us. We asked ourselves, "Who are those pioneers of the part and how did…

On 31 March 2023, Prof. Dr. Martin Polaschek, the Austrian Minister for Education, Science and Research visited CeMM for the first time. Minister Polaschek met the CeMM Directors Giulio Superti-Furga and Anita Ender and spoke to the new Principal Investigators Laura de Rooij and André Rendeiro. He also met CeMM PI Stefan Kubicek and visited the CeMM Molecular Discovery Platform. 

We are thankful for the visit and are also grateful that Minister Polaschek will be a testimonial in the next CeMM Research Report, supporting our mission and the claim of CeMM: Science is our Medicine! 

Take a look at the picture gallery here.

For the third time, the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences is one of the winners of the Innovation Awards 2023 of the Austrian Society for Consumer Studies. On this occasion, CeMM has received recognition for its outstanding “Innovation Management”, and also achieved a top-5 ranking in organic chemistry and pharmaceuticals, as well as a top-10 ranking in the biotechnology field. These distinctions are a demonstration of CeMM's groundbreaking contributions to molecular medicine and healthcare.

The ÖGVS – Gesellschaft für Verbraucherstudien, an independent society for consumer studies in Austria,…

CeMM and Angelini Ventures are joining forces to support CeMM Principal Investigators Laura de Rooij and André Rendeiro in critical lifespan expansion initiatives leveraging a novel academic/entrepreneurial dual-track program. De Rooij and Rendeiro, in collaboration with their teams, will lead an original research program on healthy lifespan expansion.  In parallel, they will collaborate on venture creation based on scientific and business insights developed by their work. Venture creation and related business development activities will take place along with scientific research.  The expectation is that this double-track initiative will…

On 16 March 2023, CeMM was honored to receive the Italian Ambassador H.E. Stefano Beltrame, the First Secretary Valeria Gravagno, and the Scientific Counselor Amedeo Staiano from the Italian Embassy in Austria. We took the opportunity to present CeMM, our infrastructure as well as our research highlights, interests, and achievements.

Our guests were welcomed by CeMM Scientific Director Giulio Superti-Furga, who accompanied them through the building all the way to discover our famous Brain Lounge, where creative ideas are born. It was the perfect place to discover more about our institute and talk to some of our CeMM spin-off chief scientific…

We are recruiting a group of postdocs who are eager to pursue ground-breaking biomedical research, and we will help them to establish themselves as future scientific leaders. This postdoc program is designed to prepare postdoctoral researchers for a successful ERC Starting Grant application or equivalent and for an independent research career in top research organizations in Europe and around the world.

The postdoc program is based at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, one of Europe’s leading centers for basic biomedical research – with clinical translation in mind. Our partners are…

For many years, the team of Principal Investigator Georg Winter at CeMM has been researching the development of Targeted Protein Degraders: a new generation of drugs that achieve greater therapeutic success through the targeted degradation of harmful, pathogenic proteins. In their current study, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), the researchers present a new method for the identification of molecules that could act as degraders and thus be used as therapeutic drugs.

The latest generation of drugs relies on targeted degradation of damaged or pathogenic proteins. This involves the use of chemical molecules that…