Healthcare industry

Article - 07/02/2011

The discovery of the individual as business model

The move towards personalised medicine has made considerable progress, in particular in the field of oncology, where it is leading to the close integration of diagnostics and therapy as well as to the development of profitable new business models, some of which have controversial exclusive legal claims.

Press release - 26/01/2011

‘Complexes Matter’ in How Epigenetic Inhibitors Interact with Their Drug Targets

Cellzome Scientists Publish First Chemoproteomic Characterization of HDAC Inhibitors in Nature Biotechnology. Results of the first ever chemoproteomic study of inhibition of HDAC Histone Deacetylase complexes opens up the potential for a new way of studying potency and selectivity for inhibitors of epigenetic drug targets such as HDACs.

Germany will contribute another project to the International Cancer Genome Consortium ICGC. Coordinated by the German Cancer Research Center and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf physicians and molecular biologists will now start to investigate the genetic causes of early prostate cancer.

In two out of three breast tumors, extraordinarily high levels of the estrogen receptor ERá are found. Scientists of the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) have now uncovered a mechanism which causes this overproduction. This result might contribute to developing new strategies for fighting the most frequent type of cancer affecting women.

Press release - 05/11/2010

Honey Bees: Genetic Labeling Decides About Blue Blood

Queen bees and worker bees share the same genome, but they are different in the chemical labeling of about 550 genes. This has been discovered by scientists of the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ), jointly with colleagues in Australia. The cancer researchers had chosen the bee as a study object in order to understand how development can be so different in organisms with identical sequence of genetic material.…

Press release - 21/10/2010

How Genes Are Selectively Silenced

Cells have to use their resources economically. Therefore they read only those genes which are needed at a given moment while the others are chemically labeled and thus selectively turned off. Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum DKFZ have now been the first to discover how these labels are placed at exactly the right spot in the genetic material.

Article - 11/10/2010

Cow sheds and asthma genetics

Many genes are known to play a role in the development of the chronic lung disease bronchial asthma. Dr. Andrea Heinzmanns team at the University Medical Centre Freiburg has investigated some of these genes and is also interested in epigenetic factors. It is known that asthma is not only caused by genetic factors but can also be triggered by mechanisms that affect the genes without changing the genetic code.

Article - 15/03/2010

Cornelia Ulrich: Cancer prevention through food and sports

The appointment of Cornelia Ulrich as professor and head of the Departments of Preventive Oncology at the National Centre for Tumour Diseases and the German Cancer Research Centre shows that Heidelberg is expanding its research priorities in the prevention and early diagnosis of cancer. Ulrichs main focus has been on the folic acid metablism C1 compounds and inflammation.

Press release - 11/03/2010

Cellzome Announces Second Alliance with GlaxoSmithKline

Cellzome today announced that it has formed a second strategic alliance with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). This new collaboration gives GSK exclusive access to Cellzome’s proprietary Episphere™ technology in the emerging field of epigenetics as applied to immunoinflammatory disease. Epigenetic mechanisms play a key role in controlling immune cell differentiation and inflammatory gene expression during an excessive inflammatory response.

Press release - 16/02/2010

He Who Dares Wins – Million Euro Funding for DKFZ Researcher

The European Research Council will provide funding of 2.4 million euro over the next four years to support a research project of Christof Niehrs at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ). Niehrs investigates the processes of reactivation of silenced genes in cells. Disruption of this mechanism can cause cancer and other diseases.

Press release - 17/12/2009

Germany Starts Its Part in the International Cancer Genome Project

German scientists will participate in the largest and most ambitious biomedical research project since the Human Genome Project. Coordinated by the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ), the German participants of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) will start their work in early January. Their aim is to analyze the molecular causes of childhood brain tumors.

Press release - 04/12/2009

Papillomavirus oncogene silences innate immune response

Human papillomavirus type 16, the most frequent cause of cervical cancer, is able to silence a signalling molecule in the host cells that is needed for immune responses to occur. If the body is unable to defend itself against intruders, the viruses can successfully invade the cells of the cervical mucosa. Researchers from the German Cancer Research Centre have discovered that the viral E6 oncogene is responsible for this mechanism.

Article - 24/10/2009

Molecular switches for gene expression in the embryo

Prof. Dr. Andreas Hecht and his team at the University of Freiburg are investigating one of seven known fundamental signalling systems that are involved in almost all embryonic development processes and that determine the fate of cells. The scientists are mainly interested in gaining insights into why the same molecules initiate different genetic programmes and hence development pathways depending on the cell type where they have their effect.

Malignant brain tumours do not often respond to promising new drugs. Researchers from Heidelberg have now uncovered a mechanism and a tumour marker that are linked to the development of this resistance. A “death receptor” might possibly indicate the chances of success of chemotherapy at the same time as providing new approaches for developing a new therapy for the successful treatment of brain tumours.

Cellzome announces today, the publication entitled “Tankyrase inhibition stabilizes axin and antagonizes Wnt signalling” is now available online in Nature. The paper describes how Cellzome’s quantitative chemical proteomics platform was used to identify a small molecule which plays a critical role in the regulation of the Wnt pathway.

Press release - 07/08/2009

Silenced genes as a warning sign of blood cancer

Important growth inhibitors are often switched off in the genetic material of cancer cells by specific chemical DNA modifications. Scientists of the German Cancer Research Centre (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ), in collaboration with colleagues from Ohio State University in the United States, have investigated how this happens. They discovered, in mice, that cancer-typical DNA methylation occurs long before the first symptoms of…

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has granted the Medical Hospital in Freiburg and the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg funding for a proposal applying to become one of the DFG’s 18 priority programmes in 2009.

Article - 11/05/2009

Can stem cells treat diabetes?

Stem cells are seen as the miracle cure of the future for many degenerative diseases. Scientists and physicians also hope that stem cells will exert their regenerative effect in the treatment of diabetes type 1 which is caused by damaged tissue.

Article - 17/02/2009

Genes and epigenetic mechanisms

The different cell types in a multicellular organism contain the same genome but differ from each other dramatically in both function and structure nerve cells kidney cells etc.. The differentiation of the cells is linked to the identity of their precursors. This then raises the question If the cells destiny is not encoded in the DNA how do they know what to become? The new director of the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Freiburg…

On the 1st of July 2008 a new Collaborative Research Centre SFB 773 was launched at the University of Tübingen to look into the Therapy resistance of solid tumours and potential remedies. In order to clarify the basic mechanisms in the development of resistance the German Research Foundation DFG has granted the researchers a total of 9.1 million euros in funding over a period of four years.

Histone acetyltransferases HATs and their antagonists the histone deacetylases are important enzymes in epigenetic gene regulation. Scientists discovered new HAT inhibitors that are now being investigated for their potential as anti-cancer drugs.

Professor Roland Schuele from the University Womens Hospital in Freiburg originally studied biochemistry. Nowadays Schuele is researching the development of prostate cancer. During his scientific career he has learnt that research cannot be steered in a particular direction. It develops and we follow it said Schuele who has been able to gain astonishing insights into the molecular processes in tumour cells.