Max Delbrück Center

Berlin Science Week 2025 kicks off on November 1. The Max Delbrück Center invites science enthusiasts to talks and tours, a concert, and exhibitions highlighting our research and to join discussions on a wide range of topics.

Researchers at the Max Delbrück Center and Aarhus University have found a mechanism through which the gene variant APOE4, long linked to a high risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, impairs neuronal function in the aging brain. The research was published in “Nature Metabolism.”

Michael Gotthardt at the Max Delbrück Center and collaborators are developing a drug to treat a common type of heart failure characterized by impaired cardiac filling. In “Cardiovascular Research,” his group and a US team showed the therapy improves cardiac function in a mouse model of the disease.

Epidemiologist Tobias Pischon not only studies the incidence of chronic diseases in populations, but also why they develop. To better predict and prevent these conditions, he searches for molecular markers in the blood and studies the influence of environment, genes, and lifestyle.

U.K.-based Wellcome has awarded over €2 million to an international research effort to uncover how malaria can injure developing babies. Emanuel Wyler at the Max Delbrück Center will play a key role in studying the molecular interaction between the parasite Plasmodium falciparum and the placenta.

Five scientists from the Max Delbrück Center have been named among the 100 most important minds in Berlin science in 2025 by the newspaper Tagesspiegel: Simone Spuler, Clara Vázquez García, Thoralf Niendorf, Gabriele Schiattarella and Ana Pombo.

Yun-Hsuan Huang spent two intense weeks at the University of Edinburgh as part of the Max Delbrück Center’s PhD exchange program in Medical Systems Biology. She returned with new skills, scientific insights – and a broader outlook on research and collaboration.

Katharina Brecht has been part of the Max Delbrück Center since July 2025, where she is responsible for Faculty Affairs and Recruitment within the staff unit ‘Strategic Programs, Resources and Implementation’. She moved only recently to Berlin. Her tip takes us to London and to Shakespeare — and to the question: Was he a woman?