Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association
| Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association | |
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 Max Delbrück House at the MDC |
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| Category: | research Institute |
| Membership: | Helmholtz Association |
| Facility location: | Berlin book |
| Areas of expertise: | basic molecular biology research, clinical research |
| Basic funding: | Federal Government (90%), State of Berlin (10%) |
| Management: | Thomas Sommer (acting, since May 2019) |
| Employee: | 1600 |
| Homepage: | www.mdc-berlin.de |
The Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association ( MDC ) in Berlin-Buch , in north-east Berlin, is one of 19 institutions of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers . It combines basic research in molecular biology with clinical research.
The institution was founded in January 1992 as the successor to three institutions that belonged to the Academy of Sciences of the GDR until 1990 , namely the Central Institute for Molecular Biology , the Central Institute for Cancer Research and the Central Institute for Cardiovascular Research , which were established from 1947 in Berlin-Buch existing institute for medicine and biology .
The center is named after the Berlin-born biophysicist and Nobel Prize winner Max Delbrück .
Financing, ownership structure and activities
The MDC is financed 90 percent by the federal government and ten percent by the state of Berlin and through additional third-party funds (2009: 24 million euros). 57 independent research groups work in the three main research areas of cardiovascular diseases, cancer and functional disorders of the nervous system. A total of around 1,400 employees and visiting researchers, including 300 doctoral students, are employed at the MDC (as of August 2012). The MDC's budget in 2012 is around 68 million euros.
The MDC operates the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) on the Berlin-Buch campus together with the Berlin Charité University Medicine. The ECRC offers laboratories and clinics, training programs and special project funding for close cooperation between researchers at the MDC and clinical research at Charité University Medicine.
A particular focus of the work of the MDC is systems biology and has founded the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB) for this purpose. The BIMSB mainly deals with questions of gene regulation.
Further collaborations exist with the Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology (FMP) , the Humboldt University of Berlin and other universities and research institutes.
In 2012, the MDC signed the Basel Declaration on Animal Experimental Research , which commits to the highest ethical standards in animal experimental work and calls for an open dialogue about the use of animals in research. The declaration underlines the necessity of animal experiments for basic medical research and demands that animal experiments be carried out with primates.
Criticism of the planned animal testing laboratory
At the beginning of 2012, the Berlin Senate announced plans to support the new building for a new in vivo pathophysiology laboratory at the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin-Buch with 24 million euros, which would increase the institute's mouse holding capacity by 14%. to rise to around 64,800 animals. According to media reports, the MDC has already had tests with over 450,000 animals approved over the next four years. The animals are killed after the experiments. Animal welfare organizations and the Green politician Claudia Hämmerling criticize the plans and accuse the Berlin coalition of the SPD and CDU breaking the word, as it had agreed to restrict animal experiments in the coalition agreement. The animal welfare policy spokesman for the Berlin SPD , Daniel Buchholz , defends the project with reference to its importance for Berlin as a research location.
Several animal welfare organizations had therefore called for a protest to the Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit (SPD) to stop supporting the project with tax money. According to the MDC, 40,121 animals were used in experiments and killed in 2015, more than 90% of them mice.
Max Delbrück Medal
The MDC awards the Max Delbrück Medal every year as part of the Berlin Lectures on Molecular Medicine .
MDC boards
The founding director of the MDC was the Heidelberg physician Detlev Ganten , who then became head of the Charité. From 2004 to 2009 Walter Birchmeier was Scientific Director of the MDC and from 2009 to 2014 it was Walter Rosenthal . Thomas Sommer was interim director from 2014 until Martin Lohse took up the position of chairman of the board and scientific director on April 1, 2016. Martin Lohse stepped down in May 2019, and Thomas Sommer has been acting Scientific Director again since then.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Resonator podcast of the Helmholtz Association : The Max Delbrück Center (Volume 2, May 10, 2013)
- ↑ Own presentation on the MDC homepage, accessed on August 18, 2012 ( Memento of the original of July 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) 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.
- ↑ MDC press release of April 23, 2012, accessed on August 18, 2012 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Controversy over the Basel Declaration - Article by Folkert Lenz from January 3, 2011 on Deutschlandfunk.de
- ↑ Animal husbandry at the MDC: " Future development " ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Information pages of the Max Delbrück Center.
- ↑ Jost Maurin: Dying for cancer research - the animal experiment industry is booming . In: taz , February 8, 2012
- ↑ Article from the Tagesspiegel , published on Qiez.de: More laboratory mice in Pankow? ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) 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.
- ↑ Lars von Törne: Demo for the mouse . In: Der Tagesspiegel , August 6, 2012
- ↑ Claudia Fuchs: 1000 animals are used every day . In: Berliner Zeitung , June 17, 2012
- ^ Press information on his 70th birthday at mdc-Berlin.de
- ↑ see English résumé of Birchmeier ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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.
- ↑ Martin Lohse becomes chairman of the board and scientific director of the Max Delbrück Center | MDC Berlin. Retrieved June 6, 2019 .
- ↑ Change in the board of the MDC | MDC Berlin. Retrieved June 6, 2019 .
Coordinates: 52 ° 37 ′ 29.4 " N , 13 ° 30 ′ 9.4" E