Martin Lohse new Chair of the Board and Scientific Director of the MDC

Professor Martin Lohse is the new Chair of the Board and Scientific Director of the MDC. Photo: Bettina Flitner

“With the appointment of Martin Lohse we have gained a superb scientist who links basic research and clinical practice. Progress in life sciences will benefit people’s health more quickly”, says State Secretary Georg Schütte of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).”

Berlin’s Senator for Research, Cornelia Yzer, stated: “Once more the MDC won in the competition to gain the best scientists. I am sure that with Prof Lohse’s guidance the MDC will further strengthen its excellent position in international research. At the same time, the MDC will, together with the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, undertake the task to lead the Berlin Institute of Health to the top of translational research.”

Helmholtz Association President Otmar D. Wiestler stated, “Martin Lohse is highly respected in Germany and abroad; his great deal of know-how and experience in science and leadership will enrich both our organization and the Berlin region. We have landed an excellent person for this important position.” Wiestler extended his thanks to Prof. Thomas Sommer, who assumed the role of interim Scientific Director of the MDC after the departure of former Prof. Walter Rosenthal. “I’d like to thank him personally for his excellent work in this demanding position. He devoted himself to the job with great energy and skill.”

Martin Lohse is looking forward to “working together with so many outstanding colleagues in future-oriented fields of molecular biology”. He adds: “From the very beginning I was impressed by the enthusiasm for basic research with the goal of medical application. Translational research is one of the core tasks of the MDC. We will strengthen the long co-operation with the Charité, the universities, and many other research institutes in Berlin. The Berlin Institute of Health will open new avenues for this.” The pharmacologist will put a special emphasis on making use of scientific results. To facilitate that, he wants to promote spin-offs in the fields of life-science and biotechnology.

Prof. Martin Lohse is 59 years old and currently Vice President of the Leopoldina National Academy of Sciences. Until recently he served as Vice President of the University of Würzburg. With a background in human medicine, pharmacy and toxicology, Lohse is an expert in cardiovascular diseases. His research has mainly focused on the mechanisms underlying cellular signaling and the means by which medications interact with receptor molecules. From 2003 to 2008 he served on the national Ethics Advisory Board. He has founded three biotechnology companies; since 2001 he has been the Speaker of the Rudolf-Virchow Center, which is the DFG Research Center for Experimental Biomedicine at the University of Würzburg. He has been focused on training young scientists as director of the graduate schools at his university since 2003.

Prof. Lohse’s scientific career began at the University of Göttingen with studies of Medicine and Philosophy. He completed his doctoral dissertation in Neurobiology at the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, also in Göttingen. He has held positions in Heidelberg, at Duke University in Durham (USA), and Munich: at the Gene Center of the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried. He has held a professorship at the University of Würzburg since 1993, where he has been Director of the Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology. He received many awards for his scientific work, amongst others the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation DFG, the highest scientific award in Germany, and two ERC grants from the European Research Council. For more than 20 years, he worked in national and international scientific organizations; he was, for instance, involved in the decision-making process of the German Excellence Initiative.

The Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association was founded in January 1992 on the recommendation of the German Council of Science and Humanities (“Wissenschaftsrat”) with the goal of linking basic science to clinical research. The MDC integrated parts of three former Central Institutes of the GDR Academy of Sciences and was named for Max Delbrück, a physicist, biologist, and Nobel Prize winner. Currently the institute employs more than 1600 people from nearly 60 countries; over 1300 of those are directly involved in research. The MDC’s annual budget is over 80 million Euros, along with substantial third-party funding obtained by individual scientific groups. As is the case with all Helmholtz institutes, the MDC receives 90 percent of its funding from the federal government and 10 percent from Berlin, the state where it resides.

Contact

Josef Zens
Press officer
Phone: +49 30 9406-2118
presse@mdc-berlin.de