MDC Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association

The MDC Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association ranks among the top institutions in the world for basic biomedical research. MDC scientists use state-of-the-art methods of molecular biology and genetic engineering in order to understand the development of complex diseases at their origin, in the genes. On this basis, they seek to develop new methods to diagnose, treat and prevent diseases. Research activities at the MDC are divided into four main areas: cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, cancer, diseases of the nervous system and medical systems biology. MDC researchers collaborate closely with the Charité in the Experimental and Clinical Research Center and also with biotech companies located on Campus Berlin-Buch. The MDC currently employs approximately 1,700 staff members, including guest scientists, and has state-of-the-art technology platforms such as 7 Tesla ultra high field MRI, electron microscopy or bioinformatics.

www.mdc-berlin.de

Leibniz Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology (FMP)

How do diseases develop? Which drugs can specifically target and intervene in the biochemistry of the body? Research activities at the Leibniz Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology (FMP), Germany’s only non-university research institute for pharmacology, are concerned with these questions. Chemists, biologists, pharmacologists, physicists and physicians collaborate closely to lay the basis for the development of future drugs.

The FMP cooperates with other Berlin research institutions such as the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine and Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin and is part of several research projects, such as the Neurocure cluster of excellence. The institute is also one of the initiators of the large-scale European project EU-OPENSCREEN, in which institutions from various European countries want to coordinate the search for new drugs, and part of the new European network “Instruct”, which seeks to link the highly sophisticated technologies in structural biology.

The institute has a staff of 300 employees and is a member of the Leibniz Association and the Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (Berlin Research Association).

www.fmp-berlin.de