CeMM zu Gast im AIL

18.10.2016 - 18.10.2016

Angewandte Innovation Lab, AIL, Wien / Österreich

Das CeMM, Center for Molecular Medicine, der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften ist eine interdisziplinäre Forschungseinrichtung für molekulare Medizin. Im Zentrum steht die Grundlagenforschung von Krankheiten wie Krebs, Entzündungen und Immunstörungen.

Das AIL hat Forscher des Cemm eingeladen, über aktuelle Forschungsprojekte zu erzählen, um so Einblick in ihre innovative Arbeit zu bekommen.

Die Vorträge werden auf Englisch gehalten.

About CeMM

The CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences is an interdisciplinary research institute committed to advancing the understanding of human diseases through basic and biomedical research.... Located at the center of the campus of the Medical University of Vienna, CeMM fosters a highly collaborative and interactive research mindset. Focusing on medically relevant questions, CeMM researchers concentrate on human biology and diseases like cancer and inflammation/immune disorders. In support of scientific pursuits and medical needs, CeMM provides access to cutting-edge technologies and has established a strategic interest in precision medicine. CeMM is a cauldron for new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches which currently holds several patents and is establishing spin-off companies. CeMM is a founding member of the EU-LIFE network and represents Austria in the alliance of 13 top research centers in life sciences, which has been established to support and strengthen European research excellence.

Jörg Menche, CeMM Principal Investigator

Understanding disease phenomena in a holistic fashion

The ever growing wealth of data, from individual genome sequencing to population wide health records, reflects the many levels of organization that play a role in disease phenomena, from protein-DNA interactions to signal transduction, from metabolism to social interactions implicated in disease transmission. In view of the complicated interactions within and across these levels, network science may provide invaluable tools to help disentangle this enormous complexity and understand disease phenomena in a holistic fashion.

Jörg Menche studied physics in Leipzig, Recife and Berlin. He did his PhD with Reinhard Lipowsky at the Max-Planck-Institute for Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam and was a postdoctoral fellow with Albert-László Barabási at Northeastern University and at the Center for Cancer Systems Biology at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Jörg Menche joined CeMM in 2015.



Christoph Bock, CeMM Principal Investigator

Reprogramming strategies in cancer therapy

Epigenetic alterations can be detected in all cancers and in essentially every patient. Despite their prevalence, the role of epigenetic alterations in cancer is not well understood. Our scientific goal is to improve cancer therapy through technology-driven research on the single-cell characterization, computational modeling, and rational reprogramming of the cancer epigenome. An interdisciplinary team of wet-lab and computational researchers combines wet-lab epigenetics research, bioinformatics modeling, and high-throughput sequencing – with a key translational component and in close collaboration with clinical researchers.

Christoph Bock did his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, and was a postdoctoral fellow with Alexander Meissner at the Broad Institute and the Harvard Department for Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. He joined CeMM as a Principal Investigator in 2012, and coordinates the next generation sequencing activities of CeMM and the Medical University of Vienna.



Giulio Superti-Furga, CeMM Scientific Director

Finding the right drug for the right patient

Most drugs work not only by engaging a single target, but by producing large, complex perturbations of biological systems. The Superti-Furga laboratory has developed or adapted a variety of chemical biology approaches such as chemo-proteomics, genome editing and haploid genetic screens to understand drug action at the molecular level. Historically, the lab has identified new targets for known drugs, previously unknown mechanisms of drug resistance, “effector” genes for the compounds (genes required for the drug to exert its action), and mechanisms of synergy between compounds and, in a few cases, new medical use of existing drugs.

Giulio Superti-Furga has been the Scientific Director of CeMM since 2005. He studied molecular biology at the University of Zurich, Genentech Inc. and IMP Vienna (Meinrad Busslinger), was a postdoctoral fellow and team leader at EMBL Heidelberg (Giulio Draetta/Sara Courtneidge), and co-founder of the biotech companies Cellzome and Haplogen/Haplogen Genomics. Among his major achievements to date are the discovery of fundamental organization principles of the proteome of higher organisms, the elucidation of new pathways in cancer and innate immunity as well as the establishment of a world-unique experimental framework to decipher the molecular mechanism of action of drugs.

[Quelle: www.ailab.at]