Berlin Science Award for Professor Nikolaus Rajewsky of MDC
Nikolaus Rajewsky is Professor of systems biology at the MDC
and the Charité in Berlin-Buch, and head of the Berlin Institute for Medical
Systems Biology (BIMSB) of the MDC. Since 2008, he is also a Global
Distinguished Professor of Biology at New YorkUniversity.
His current research focus, systems biology, combines a
wide spectrum of disciplines such as molecular biology, biochemistry,
mathematics and physics. Systems biology investigates biological processes and
their interaction in cells, tissues and organisms on the basis of experimental
as well as statistical and mathematical approaches with the aim of
understanding and predicting life’s complex processes in quantitative terms.
In this context Professor Rajewsky is investigating the
function of microRNAs, small molecules that are composed of ribonucleic acid
(RNA). He has been able to show that a single microRNA can control the
formation of hundreds of different proteins and has thus confirmed that
microRNAs regulate almost all important life processes in cells and organisms.
For this reason, microRNAs are also of great importance for
biomedical research, since with their help disease-specific processes can be
elucidated and potentially treated in the future.
Professor Rajewsky has also made important contributions
regarding the function of microRNAs for metabolism, the immune system and
embryonic development. In 2009 alone, his works were cited over 1,300 times in
international journals – which in the scientific community indicates research
of fundamental importance and highest quality.
Close cooperation
with universities and non-university institutions in Berlin
The BIMSB of the MDC is supported with around 12 million
euros start-up funding (2008-2010) by the German Federal Ministry of Research
and the Berlin Senate.
It will be expanded in the coming years and relocated to a
new building on the new ‘Life Science Campus’ of Humboldt University (HU) in
central Berlin, and will collaborate closely with the university- and
non-university institutions in Berlin.
Cooperation partners of the BIMSB are – aside from the
Charité - the HU, the Free University
(FU) and the Technical University (TU), the Leibniz Institute of Molecular
Pharmacology (FMP) in Berlin-Buch, the MATHEON, the German Rheumatism Research
Center as well as institutes of the Max Planck Society and the Helmholtz
Association.
Furthermore, in close
collaboration with New York University, the BIMSB has created an international
joint education and training program for PhD students. This collaboration
strengthens modern interdisciplinary scientific training as well as health
research and biotechnology in Berlin and complement existing capacities.
The Science Award of the Governing Mayor of Berlin was
awarded for the first time in 2008 and went to the mathematician Professor
Martin Grötschel of the TU Berlin and the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB).
Professor Nikolaus Rajewsky from the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB) of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch. Reveiver of the Berlin Science Award. (Photo: private)
Barbara Bachtler
Press and Public Affairs
Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch
Robert-Rössle-Straße 10; 13125 Berlin; Germany
Phone: +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 96
Fax: +49 (0) 30 94 06 - 38 33
e-mail: presse@mdc-berlin.de
http://www.mdc-berlin.de/
