News in 2012
December 2012
LECTURE SERIES: Scientific colleagues from Campus Buch, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, and Saarbrücken join together in Winter Semester 12-13 to present the Systems Biology Lectures in Epigenetics. All are welcome to attend.
Update: The lecture of Thomas Meyer on November 21, 2012 is cancelled. Professor Meyer will cover both advertised topics during his lecture of November 14, 2012.
October 2012
COLLABORATION: German Epigenome Consortium
BIMSB researchers are involved in the 16 M€ epigenome program contributing to the International Human Genome Consortium IHEC. The groups of Nikolaus Rajewsky and Wei Chen contribute substantially to the german epigenome network by applying next-generation-sequencing technologies and bioinformatic approaches to analyze non-coding RNAs and compile the data for the reference epigenomes.
July 2012
CONFERENCE: The 5th Berlin Summer Meeting will take place from June 28 to June 30
This year's Berlin Summer Meeting topic is “Genetic Dissection vs. Systems & Synthetic Biology” and the meeting will be a little different from the conference style. It will mainly host MDC and BIMSB group leaders and a few selected external guests with a maximum of about 100 participants. We are planning to ‘retreat‘ to the outer Berlin area, more specifically to the Hotel Döllnsee-Schorfheide in Brandenburg. The style of the meeting allows in-depth presentation and extensive discussions. The 2012 retreat is being organised by Klaus and Nikolaus Rajewsky, supported by Michael Reth (Freiburg).
May 2012
LECTURE SERIES: Scientific colleagues from Campus Buch, Berlin and Potsdam join to present the Systems Biology Ringvorlesung Summer Semester 2012 on the topic of RNA Biology. All are welcome to attend.
April 2012
Nikolaus Rajewsky and DFG President Matthias Kleiner
(Photo: David Ausserhofer/Copyright: MDC)
AWARD: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize for Nikolaus Rajewsky
Professor Nikolaus Rajewsky of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin has been honored with Germany’s most important research award, the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. The award ceremony took place on February 27, 2012 in Berlin. The 43-year-old scientist is the youngest of the eleven prizewinners, who come from different disciplines. The prize is endowed with up to 2.5 million euros. The German Research Foundation (DFG) awards this prize to exceptional scientists and academics for outstanding achievement in their respective fields of research.
February 2012
AWARD: Professor Nikolaus Rajewsky of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin has been awarded the highest honour in German research, the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize
Nikolaus Rajewsky is Professor of Systems Biology at the MDC and Charité and is the scientific head of the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB).
His field of research is Systems Biology combining molecular biology, biochemistry, mathematics and physics to determine the function of gene regulatory elements such as microRNAs. He has characterized by experimental and computational techniques the role that microRNAs play in gene regulation, including those genes which govern the onset of disease. Thus, establishing a new research area for the discovery of targets for therapeutic approaches.
Professor Rajewsky has already received a number of academic distinctions, such as the 2009 Science Prize of the Governing Mayor of Berlin. In 2010 he was further elected member of the European Organisation for Molecular Biology (EMBO). He became Global Distinguished Professor of Biology at New York University, USA in 2008.
More information about Nikolaus Rajewsky, his work and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize:
Press release of the MDC (in English)
Press release of the DFG (in German)
Die Zeit interview (in German)
EMBO interview (in English)
Homepage of the Nikolaus Rajewsky lab