Newsroom.

A study led by Dr. Caspar Ohnmacht from the Center of Allergy and Environment (ZAUM) and Prof. Dietmar Zehn from the Technical University of Munich has provided new insights into how gut bacteria – collectively known as the microbiome – shape the…

A new study, led by Prof. Eleftheria Zeggini, Director of the Institute of Translational Genomics at Helmholtz Munich, and Prof. Anette-Gabriele Ziegler, Director of the Institute of Diabetes Research at Helmholtz Munich, has revealed a significant…

In a new study, researchers at Helmholtz Munich, in collaboration with the Helmholtz Protein Expression and Purification Platform (PEPP), have developed a CRISPR-based technology that activates genes without using DNA or viruses. This method offers a…

Scientists from the German Mouse Clinic at the Institute of Experimental Genetics (Helmholtz Munich) have studied the effects of a missing gene, Ten1, on aging. By generating a mouse model with Ten1 deficiency, researchers observed that without this…

A new study has identified KLK7, a protein found in immune cells, as a key driver of obesity-related inflammation and metabolic disorders. Led by PD Dr. John Heiker and Dr. Aleix Ribas-Latre from the Helmholtz Institute for Metabolic, Obesity and…

Helmholtz Munich researchers have introduced a new imaging method that exploits light, sound, and temperature-induced material changes. This approach uncovers a novel contrast mechanism in optoacoustic imaging, driven by tiny temperature-based shifts…

A study led by researchers from Helmholtz Munich and the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD) unveils a key communication pathway between the immune system and metabolism in the hypothalamic region of the brain. By identifying the role of…

A study led by Dr. Janna Nawroth, PI at the Pioneer Campus at Helmholtz Munich, unveils key differences between human and rodent airways, redefining models for respiratory research. By mapping mucociliary clearance (MCC) function and refining in…

A research team led by Dr. Eva Hörmanseder from the Institute of Epigenetics and Stem Cells (IES) has uncovered crucial factors that limit the success of nuclear reprogramming, a process used to change one type of cell into another. While this…

A study led by Dr. Tingying Peng, Helmholtz AI PI at the Computational Health Center at Helmholtz Munich, and Dr. Melanie Boxberg from the TUM Department of Pathology has introduced a new technology aimed at improving how doctors analyze tissue…

A research team led by Prof. Henrik Semb, Director of the Institute of Translational Stem Cell Research at Helmholtz Munich, has gained new insights into how immature pancreatic cells decide whether to become insulin-producing beta cells or…

A team of researchers led by Prof. Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla has identified a new factor that plays a crucial role in regulating retrotransposons and genes at the earliest stages of embryonic development. This discovery sheds new light on the moment…

The clinical onset of type 1 diabetes is preceded by presymptomatic stages, that are marked by the presence of two or more islet autoantibodies. Stage 1 is characterized by normal blood glucose levels, while stage 2 is marked by dysglycemia. However,…

A research team led by Dr. Malte Lücken from the Institute of Computational Biology (ICB) and the Institute of Lung Health & Immunity (LHI) at Helmholtz Munich has published a guide in Nature Methods on creating single-cell atlases—critical tools for…

A team led by Prof. Fabian Theis, Director of the Computational Health Center and the Institute of Computational Biology at Helmholtz Munich, has developed Spapros, a computational pipeline set to transform the design of spatial transcriptomics…

Lung diseases, including asthma and emphysema, often preferentially affect specific regions of the lung, highlighting the need for precise drug delivery to achieve effective treatment. A team led by Dr. Lin Yang and Dr. Otmar Schmid from the…

Researchers at Helmholtz Munich have identified a specific redox protein as a critical regulator of ferroptosis - a form of regulated oxidative cell death. Research into ferroptosis mechanisms has attracted considerable interest due to its potential…

A new computational tool called Moslin is gaining attention in biomedical research by helping scientists better understand how cells make decisions during critical biological processes like development, disease progression, and tissue healing. The…

A team of researchers has unveiled Tumoroscope, a computational method that offers unprecedented insight into the spatial evolution of tumors and the intricate behaviors of cancer cell populations, known as clones. Published in Nature Communications,…

Researchers around Prof. Markus Rehberg from the Institute of Lung Health and Immunity at Helmholtz Munich have discovered how engineered nanoparticles cause an undesired inflammatory response within the blood vessels in the lungs. The research team…

Malfunctions of tiny cell extensions (primary cilia*) in the beta cells of the pancreas may be a cause of type 2 diabetes. Little is known about the structure and function of these cilia. An international research team led by scientists from the Paul…

A research study led by Dr. Lothar J. Strobl and Dr. Ursula Zimber-Strobl from the Institute of Lung Health and Immunity (LHI) at Helmholtz Munich sheds new light on the potential role of CD30, a receptor protein, in regulating immune responses and…

How does the immune system maintain the delicate balance between attacking harmful invaders and avoiding harmful overreactions? Special immune cells called regulatory T cells (Tregs) play a vital role in this process by helping to keep the immune…

Optoacoustic imaging is transforming biological research by enabling high-resolution imaging at depths beyond traditional optical microscopy. Already applied in clinical settings, this technique now requires more effective optoacoustic labels for use…

Chronic lung diseases rank as the third leading cause of death worldwide according to the World Health Organization, with incurable conditions such as pulmonary fibrosis among the most severe. While healthy lungs have the capacity to regenerate, this…

In a new study led by Dr. Daphne Cabianca, researchers of the Institute of Functional Epigenetics at Helmholtz Munich have unveiled how environmental factors, specifically fasting, can dramatically alter the spatial organization of chromatin within…

A better understanding of ferroptosis – an iron-dependent form of cell death – is an essential prerequisite for the treatment of (neuro)degenerative diseases and certain types of cancer. A team of researchers led by Dr. Kamyar Hadian from the…

A team of researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for Metabolic, Obesity and Vascular Research (HI-MAG) of Helmholtz Munich in Leipzig and the University of Leipzig has uncovered a significant connection between the concentration of salivary…

New hope for acute leukemia patients: Helmholtz Munich researchers, led by Prof. Irmela Jeremias, have identified a promising therapeutic target, ADAM10, which could improve treatment strategies for relapsed leukemia. Their study, recently published…

A study led by Lara Urban, Principal Investigator at Helmholtz AI and the Pioneer Campus at Helmholtz Munich and TUM Junior Fellow at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), has revealed a novel method for detecting hidden antibiotic resistance,…

Researchers around Prof. Fabian Theis from Helmholtz Munich and the Technical University of Munich (TUM), have developed CellRank 2, a new tool that promises to transform the way scientists study cells. This new method significantly improves our…

In chronic hepatitis B, the liver contains immune cells that could destroy hepatitis B virus-infected cells but are inactive. An international team led by scientists at the Technical University of Munich and Helmholtz Munich has discovered that cells…

For newcomers to the field of single-cell analysis as well as for experts, scientists led by Fabian Theis, Head of the Computational Health Center at Helmholtz Munich and Professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), developed best practice…

The technological progress for single-cell research resulted in an increasing amount of data, accordingly big data has become one of the central parts in medical research. “Omics” technologies do not just rely on large scale molecular datasets but…

A new evaluation of data from children with early-stage type 1 diabetes during the COVID-19 pandemic shows an accelerated progression from the presymptomatic early stage to clinical onset of type 1 diabetes in children with a SARS-CoV-2 infection.…

Islet autoimmunity, which underlies the development of type 1 diabetes (T1D), is influenced by various environmental factors, including early childhood viral infections. Scientists from the GPPAD consortium, coordinated at Helmholtz Munich, recently…

People with prediabetes are advised to reduce their weight in order to prevent manifest diabetes. Researchers from the Institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases of Helmholtz Munich at the University of Tübingen, a partner in the German…

A recent review published in Current Opinion in Cell Biology, authored by Jonathan Schneider and Dr. Marion Jasnin from the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus at Helmholtz Munich, illuminates the capabilities of cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) in unraveling…

A team led by Prof. Fabian Theis developed HADGE, a new tool that improves the accuracy and efficiency of identifying individual donors in single-cell studies. The work, recently published in Genome Biology, represents a major step forward in the…

A new paper published in Developmental Cell is the result of a collaboration between the Scialdone (Helmholtz Munich) and Srinivas (Oxford) groups. The two teams combined their respective experimental and computational expertise to unravel the…

The diagnosis of type 1 diabetes often comes with serious complications for families, as the autoimmune disease is frequently detected only after severe symptoms develop. Early detection of type 1 diabetes through population-wide screening offers…

Researchers created a new approach to reduce the complexity of the NMR experiments and facilitate the investigation of membrane protein systems of pharmaceutical importance.

The rise in asthma has been linked to different environmental and lifestyle factors including dietary habits. Researchers at Helmholtz Munich now discovered that a higher salt intake contributes to allergic asthma incidence in females. The team…

Helmholtz Munich researcher Celia Martinez-Jimenez, principal investigator at the Pioneer Campus in the research group “Molecular Ageing”, and her team have unraveled the enigmatic world of hepatocyte polyploidy—a genomic phenomenon that proved to…

A new study found that hypertension patients who took their blood pressure medication at a time aligned with their body clock had a reduced risk of heart attack.

A team led by Helmholtz Munich scientist Dr. Grzegorz Popowicz unveils the Molecular Interactions Structurally Optimized (MISATO) dataset, offering a transformative approach to training AI models for designing new drug molecules. MISATO represents a…

A team of Helmholtz Munich scientists has made a significant advancement in the understanding of ferroptosis, a complex form of cell death, by successfully detecting it retrospectively in human pathological conditions. This pioneering research,…

At the helm of a new era in vascular research, Prof. Matthias Meier and his team at the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus (HPC) at Helmholtz Munich, introduce a cutting-edge microfluidic vessel-on-chip technology. This innovation leverages human stem cells to…

Scientists have created a non-invasive technology for measuring glucose levels in blood.

After weight loss, people with overweight and obesity express more of the protein Kallistatin* in subcutaneous white adipose tissue. This was demonstrated by researchers from Helmholtz Munich and the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD) in a…

Various tissue fibroblast types with distinct properties shape the architecture of the specialized niches of the lung (e.g. airways, alveoli, vasculature). In a significant breakthrough, a team led by Gerald Burgstaller and Herbert Schiller from…

A new study led by Helmholtz Munich scientists Ursula Zimber-Strobl and Lothar J. Strobl sheds light on the intricate pathways of B-lymphocyte development during adaptive immune responses. The study, published in Nature Communications, reveals that…

A precursor of cholesterol, previously categorised as harmful, can protect cancer cells from cell death. This finding, published in Nature, opens new doors for cancer research.

Researchers around Magdalena Götz from Helmholtz Munich have made strides in direct neuronal reprogramming. This innovative approach transforms non-neuronal cells, specifically astrocytes, into functional neurons. Investigating patient-derived cells,…

Metabolomics is a scientific approach that involves the comprehensive study of small molecules, known as metabolites, within a biological system. In a major stride towards advancing metabolomics research, researchers around Michael Witting from the…

Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is widespread and very contagious: according to the World Health Association more than 90 percent of the global population are infected with this virus throughout their lives. The virus causes B and T cell lymphomas (cancer…

A recent discovery led by Helmholtz Munich researchers from the Type 1 Diabetes Immunology Research Unit has uncovered how regulatory immune T-cells (called Tregs) interplay and control metabolic tissues. The new findings published in Cell…

Therapeutic antibodies play a crucial role in treating diseases by modifying immune cells. Scientists from the Institute of AI for Health at Helmholtz Munich in collaboration with Roche present an open-source framework for comprehensive antibody…

Sporadic Parkinson's Disease (sPD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. While mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to this condition, its role across disease progression remains unclear.…

Scientists from the Bonev Lab at the PioneerCampus at Helmholtz Munich present 3DRAM-seq, a revolutionary technique that maps spatial genome organization, chromatin accessibility, DNA methylation, and gene expression - all at once.

A groundbreaking study now published in Nature Genetics marks a turning point in depression genetics, offering new hope for personalized medicine through enhanced Polygenic Risk Scores (PRS).

Helmholtz Munich researchers have discovered, that air pollutants activate previously dormant herpes viruses leading to a immune response. These new findings are now published in ASC Nano.

Scientists from the PioneerCampus at Helmholtz Munich unraveled rather transcriptionally distinct subgroups of human hepatocytes with relevance to human disease and personalized treatment.

Understanding ferroptosis is essential for addressing degenerative diseases and certain cancers. Researchers, led by Dr. Kamyar Hadian from Helmholtz Munich, revealed that the Farnesoid X Receptor (FXR), activated by bile acids, serves as a master…

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was in 2019 the primary cause of deaths from chronic respiratory diseases, accounting for 3.3 million deaths worldwide. In Germany, according to the “European Lung White Book”, the number of COPD patients…

Prediabetes is a precursor to type 2 diabetes with an increased risk of heart attacks, kidney and eye diseases, and various types of cancer. In Germany, there is no approved medication for prediabetes. Scientists from the German Center for Diabetes…

An in vitro roadmap guiding vascularization in tissue engineering

With the dilemma of the need for organ transplants by far surpassing available donor organs, the number of patients dying while waiting for a suitable transplant will inevitably…

A collaborative endeavor between computer scientists and diabetes researchers at Helmholtz Munich has yielded novel insights into the mechanisms underlying type 1 and type 2 diabetes. This collaboration has resulted in the creation of the first mouse…

A recent discovery led by Dr. Anika Seel and Dr. Kurt Schmoller at the Institute for Functional Epigenetics (IFE) at Helmholtz Munich has uncovered a fascinating link between cell size and mitochondrial DNA regulation, shedding light on a previously…

Researchers from Helmholtz Munich have reached a significant milestone in precision medicine with their new publication on the 'Oncology Biomarker Discovery (OncoBird)' framework. This innovative approach aims to systematically identify actionable…

DNA origami structures fitted with antibodies help immune system to target cancer cells

Immunotherapy is viewed as an exceptionally promising weapon in the fight against cancer. In essence, the aim is to activate the body’s immune system in such a…

The coexistence of multiple chronic diseases in a single individual, defined as multimorbidity, poses a significant challenge in healthcare as the global population ages. In a collaborative effort, researchers investigated the link between type 2…

Diagnosis of type 1 diabetes (T1D) can come with serious complications for families: too often, the autoimmune disease is only detected after severe symptoms develop. In Germany, more than 20 percent of all children and adolescents diagnosed with T1D…

Human health is closely connected to the health of our environment. So far, the complex ways in which they influence each other are not fully understood. The concept of One Health recognizes this interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental…

New algorithm six times more reliable at predicting defective RNA

So far, it has not been possible to explain the causes of around half of all rare hereditary diseases. A Munich research team has developed an algorithm that predicts the effects of…

Predicting the effects of drugs regarding dosage, timing, possible drug combinations and other types of intervention such as gene knockouts can be experimentally difficult and very time-consuming. Nonetheless, this is one of the most important tasks…

Inflammatory fatty liver disease (NASH, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis) and the resulting liver cancer are driven by autoaggressive T cells. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Helmholtz Munich and the Technical University Munich…

It is commonly known that DNA assembles into heterochromatin, a densely composed structure, thereby preventing access to the information encoded by the DNA and gene expression. Until now it is not completely understood how this structure forms during…

Triose phosphates (TPs) are the primary products of photosynthetic CO₂ fixation in chloroplasts, which need to be exported into the cytosol across the chloroplast inner envelope (IE) and outer envelope (OE) membranes to sustain plant growth.

A team…

Lean, metabolically unhealthy, people have a risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) that is higher than the risk observed in obese, metabolically healthy people. Recently, novel cluster analyses (computer-based grouping of people) also identified a…

Identification of a previously unknown function of adipose tissue in insulin secretion.

Scientists at Helmholtz Munich and the University of Augsburg have made an important breakthrough in better understanding early processes in the development of…

Type 2 diabetes disease progression and successful intervention depend on individual’s unique clinical, genetic, genomic, and environmental information partly represented by gene expression patterns. An international team of researchers around…

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is an important risk factor for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. In a Perspective in Cell Metabolism, Norbert Stefan from Helmholtz Munich, the German Center for Diabetes Research and the…

Modern cancer therapy aims to tailor treatment to each individual patient's needs by identifying specific molecular targets with essential functions in the tumor of these patients. Leukemia, or blood cancer, is a common tumor in children and occurs…

How can the clinical translation of research findings be accelerated to improve human health? What role does bioengineering play in driving the development of medicine and biology solutions? Matthias Tschöp, CEO at Helmholtz Munich and Alexander von…

The renal phosphate wasting disease X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) is a rare metabolic disorder of the bones associated with severe renal phosphate loss. The first symptoms of the genetic defect appear in childhood and adolescence and can…

Which factors drive non-communicable inflammatory skin diseases? A research team led by Stefanie Eyerich, Michael Menden, as well as Kilian Eyerich have investigated this question and applied a new spatial transcriptomics technology, that gives…

A research team from Helmholtz Munich and the Leipzig University’s Faculty of Medicine has discovered a new mechanism that is associated with severe obesity in children. This genetic rearrangement leads to an unusual expression of a gene that can…

Three approaches with a reputation for slowing aging processes have proven largely ineffective. For their study, researchers developed a new method to measure aging, which accounts for the complexity of aging in organisms.

It is well known that genes and environmental factors such as air pollutants, bacteria and also diet can influence the development of allergies or asthma. Researchers at Helmholtz Munich have now examined the role of food in more detail. Their…

How is a muscle protein related to energy production in brown adipose tissue (BAT)? And could this be a possible starting point in the fight against obesity? A team of researchers led by John Heiker from the Helmholtz Institute for Metabolic, Obesity…

The discovery of gut hormone dual and triple co-agonist drug classes by Matthias Tschöp and Richard DiMarchi has led to a series of new therapeutics in clinical development. The first co-agonist at the receptors for GLP-1 and GIP has recently been…

Through the course of the last several decades, the rate of obesity has progressively increased and is now one of the leading causes of death worldwide – according to the World Health Organization (WHO) 650 million adults are classified as obese. The…

Does exercise help against diabetes and obesity? Researchers around PD Dr Stephanie Kullmann from Helmholtz Munich and DZD have investigated this question in a clinical study. The results show that just eight weeks of exercise can help restore the…

More than three percent of the world’s population (around 300 million people) are living with a chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Having chronic hepatitis B increases the risk for patients to develop liver failure, liver cancer or cirrhosis…

Helmholtz Munich researcher Kristian Unger, head of Translational Bioinformatics at the Department of Radiation Cytogenetics (ZYTO), together with scientists from the LMU Radiation Clinic and the LMU Medical Physics, has developed the AI method…

Surface molecules EGFR and Integrin beta 4 play a key role in this process

Frequently, cancer patients do not die because of their “initial tumor” in a specific organ. Only when individual cells of the primary tumor transform, migrate or colonize…

New Publication of Ali Doryab and Otmar Schmid (Schmid Lab, Institute of Lung Health and Immunity) in Advanced Materials

Parkinson's disease, formerly known as shaking palsy, is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in Germany after Alzheimer's disease. It affects about 400,000 people in Germany alone and can neither be cured nor can its progression be…

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of pathology, especially in the early detection of diseases, has increased rapidly in the past decade. However, despite an ever-growing number of publications in the field, only few methods are…