Eckhard Lammert

Eckhard Lammert (born April 25, 1971 in Ratingen ) is a German molecular biologist and biochemist .

Life

After studying biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Hamburg from 1990 to 1995, Eckhard Lammert worked at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg. He then worked at the Interfaculty Institute for Cell Biology in Hans-Georg Rsameee's group and received his doctorate in the Department of Biology at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen . This was followed by a scientific activity in the group of Douglas A. Melton at Harvard University in the USA until 2002 . Lammert headed a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) from 2002 to 2008 and completed his habilitation in 2007 at the Technical University of Dresden (TUD) .

Since 2008 Eckhard Lammert has been a university professor, head of the Institute for Metabolic Physiology at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf , and, as a sideline, director of the Institute for Beta Cell Biology at the German Diabetes Center .

Lammert has had type I diabetes since 1988; It is also very important to him in his private life to work on improving the situation of diabetics.

In 2011 Eckhard Lammert was offered a professorship (W3) at the Technical University of Munich, which he did not accept in favor of his work at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.

theses

At the beginning of 2000, Eckhard Lammert and his colleagues hypothesized that blood vessels and organs influence each other during their development so that their properties are perfectly coordinated. For this reason, according to Lammert, there is an ongoing mutual relationship and dependency between organs and blood vessels. Over the course of this decade, Lammert and his colleagues have put forward two new theses. One thesis explains why people develop type II diabetes while others are spared this disease. Another thesis advocated by Lammert and his colleagues suggests a molecular mechanism by which cells form blood vessels that are essential for supplying the human body with oxygen and nutrients.

Organ-blood vessel interaction

It is observed that small blood vessels in every organ or tissue group have special characteristics. A small blood vessel is called a capillary . It is also known that factors originating from organs are responsible for these specific characteristics of blood vessels.

Lammert and his colleagues have now put forward the thesis that not only do the organs influence blood vessels in their formation and their characteristics, but that the reverse is also true. In other words, the blood vessels also contribute to the development and function of the cells within the organs. This thesis is based on the observation that the embryonic aorta is necessary for the formation of part of the pancreas and that the small blood vessels of the insulin- producing islets of Langerhans enable the islet cells to regulate the blood sugar level correctly . Blood vessels are also necessary for the growth of the liver.

Development of type II diabetes

Type II diabetes is a widespread disease that affects around 400 million people worldwide. One doctrine is that insulin resistance caused by being overweight triggers the development of type II diabetes. Insulin resistance is a condition in which the human body needs significantly more insulin to regulate blood sugar than normal. In recent years it has become clear that only a fraction (an estimated 20-30%) of insulin-resistant people develop type II diabetes. Why these people suffer from type II diabetes while other insulin-resistant people do not develop this diabetes is still unclear.

According to Lammert, an important difference between these people lies in their blood vessels. According to his thesis, insulin-resistant people with an adaptable blood vessel system do not get type II diabetes as easily, while insulin-resistant people with defective blood vessels are more likely to develop type II diabetes. This thesis is based on the observation that many human genes (better alleles ) that promote type II diabetes play a role in the blood vessel system. Mice with an altered blood vessel system in the insulin-producing islets of Langerhans also have an increased blood sugar level.

For his work on type II diabetes, Lammert received the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Young Talent Award in 2008 in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt in the presence of the then Federal President Horst Köhler . In 2013 he also received the Klüh Foundation Prize in the City Hall of Düsseldorf. The then Federal Minister of Health Daniel Bahr gave the laudation.

Blood vessel formation

Blood vessels are tubes that are formed by so-called endothelial cells . To explain how endothelial cells form tubes, i.e. blood vessels , the vacuole coalescence thesis was first proposed by Florence Rena Sabin in 1920 and followed up by Judah Folkman , George Davis and Brant Weinstein. The thesis assumes that every endothelial cell forms a large, fluid-filled vacuole inside, which merges with the vacuoles of other endothelial cells to form a continuous blood vessel lumen.

Lammert and his colleagues have come up with a new thesis: according to this, endothelial cells initially attach to one another to form cell cords. The cells then separate and release an extracellular space between them. By changing the cell shape of the endothelial cells, this cell space becomes the lumen of a blood vessel through which blood can flow. This thesis is based on biochemical, genetic and cell biological studies on the formation of the aorta , the first embryonic blood vessel.

Other research

The Institute for Metabolic Physiology is systematically looking for substances that stimulate and maintain the production of the Langerhans Islands. In 2010, Lammert's team examined the lotus flower, among other things . The analyzes - also with a special reader - give Lammert hope that in the future (after studies and clinical tests) there will be a beneficial combination of active ingredients against diabetes. In 2015, the Lammert team and other working groups published that the cough suppressant dextromethorphan has anti-diabetic properties in high doses.

So far, only ten of the 250 drug categories have been tested for diabetes. For decades, research into diabetes has focused on symptoms at the expense of finding a cure.

Selected publications

• Linda Lorenz, Jennifer Axnick, Tobias Buschmann, Carina Henning, Sofia Urner, Shentong Fang, Harri Nurmi, Nicole Eichhorst, Richard Holtmeier, Kálmán Bódis, Jong-Hee Hwang, Karsten Müssig, Daniel Eberhard, Jörg Stypmann, Oliver Kuss, Michael Roden, Kari Alitalo, Dieter Häussinger, Eckhard Lammert: Mechanosensing by β1 integrin induces angiocrine signals for liver growth and survival. In: Nature. 562, 2018, pp. 128-132, PMID 30258227 , 10.1038 / s41586-018-0522-3 .
• Jan Marquard, Silke Otter, Alena Welters, Alin Stirban, Annelie Fischer, Jan Eglinger, Diran Herebian, Olaf Kletke, Maša Skelin Klemen, Andraž Stožer, Stephan Wnendt, Lorenzo Piemonti, Martin Köhler, Jorge Ferrer, Bernard Thorens, Freimut Schliess, Marjan Slak Rupnik, Tim Heise, Per-Olof Berggren, Nikolaj Klöcker, Thomas Meissner, Ertan Mayatepek, Daniel Eberhard, Martin Kragl, Eckhard Lammert: Characterization of pancreatic NMDA receptors as possible drug targets for diabetes treatment. In: Nat Med. 21, 2015, pp. 363-372, PMID 25774850 , doi: 10.1038 / nm.3822 .
• Boris Strilić, Tomáš Kučera, Jan Eglinger, Michael R. Hughes, Kelly M. McNagny, Sachiko Tsukita, Elisabetta Dejana, Napoleone Ferrara, Eckhard Lammert: The Molecular Basis of Vascular Lumen Formation in the Developing Mouse Aorta. In: Dev Cell. 17, 2009, pp. 505-515, PMID 19853564 , doi: 10.1016 / j.devcel.2009.08.011 (free full text).
• E. Lammert: The vascular trigger of type II diabetes mellitus. In: Exp Clin Endocrinol Diabetes. 116, 2008, pp. S21-S25, doi: 10.1055 / s-2008-1081487 .
• I. Konstantinova, G. Nikolova, M. Ohara-Imaizumi, P. Meda, T. Kucera, K. Zarbalis, W. Wurst, S. Nagamatsu, E. Lammert: EphA-Ephrin-A-mediated beta cell communication regulates insulin secretion from pancreatic islets. In: Cell. 129, No. 2, 2007, pp. 359-370, PMID 17448994 , doi: 10.1016 / j.cell.2007.02.044 (free full text).
• G. Nikolova, N. Jabs, I. Konstantinova, A. Domogatskaya, K. Tryggvason, L. Sorokin, R. Fässler, G. Gu, HP Gerber, N. Ferrara, DA Melton, E. Lammert: The vascular basement membrane : a niche for insulin gene expression and Beta cell proliferation. In: Dev Cell. 10, No. 3, 2006, pp. 397-405, PMID 16516842 , doi: 10.1016 / j.devcel.2006.01.015 (free full text).
• E. Lammert, G. Gu, M. McLaughlin, D. Brown, R. Brekken, LC Murtaugh, HP Gerber, N. Ferrara, DA Melton: Role of VEGF-A in vascularization of pancreatic islets. In: Curr Biol. 13, No. 12, 2003, pp. 1070-1074, PMID 12814555 , doi: 10.1016 / S0960-9822 (03) 00378-6 (free full text).
• E. Lammert, O. Cleaver, D. Melton: Induction of pancreatic differentiation by signals from blood vessels. In: Science . 294, No. 5542, 2001, pp. 564-567, PMID 11577200 , doi: 10.1126 / science.1064344 (free full text).

Web links

• Literature by and about Eckhard Lammert in the catalog of the German National Library

swell

1. ↑ Homepage of the Institute for Metabolic Physiology
2. ↑ [1]
3. ^ ^{A b} Ananda Milz: Anton Betz Foundation: Wanted: A remedy for diabetes. (No longer available online.) In: RP Online . September 16, 2010, archived from the original on January 22, 2011 ; accessed on February 14, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ^ Winners of the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Young Talent Award ( Memento from March 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ).
5. ↑ [2]