Research / 03.12.2024
The Max Delbrück Center bids farewell to Thomas Sommer

For three decades, Thomas Sommer conducted research at the Max Delbrück Center and shaped its development: as a scientist, ombudsman, committee representative, and interim board member. On December 6, the center will honor him with a symposium on his favorite topic — the cell's recycling system.

On December 6, 2024, the Max Delbrück Center will bid farewell to a long-time friend who has significantly influenced the institution: Professor Thomas Sommer. He joined the center as a junior group leader in the early 1990s — and remained for 30 years. He served as an ombudsman for PhD candidates multiple times and twice took on the role of interim head of the Max Delbrück Center, most recently from 2019 to 2022. As a manager and networker, he represented the center in various committees. Now, he is starting a new chapter in his career. Sommer has become the managing director of the Institute for Biomedical Translation (IBT) Lower Saxony in Hanover, which supports biomedical startups in the region.

Basic research and application are inseparable, Sommer says, as all therapies originate from basic research. He promoted this philosophy in his roles at the Max Delbrück Center, helping to create the structures that allow researchers to both understand the fundamentals of life and develop new therapeutic approaches.

A symposium on the cell’s recycling system

His research career has been dedicated to studying the ubiquitin-proteasome system, also known as the cell's recycling system. Ubiquitin acts as a tag, marking proteins that have accumulated defects for various reasons, which render them nonfunctional or even harmful, and prepares them for disposal. The cell breaks down the marked proteins and reuses their components to create new ones.

The recycling system is the focus of the symposium titled "Targeted proteolysis: From basic discovery to clinical application," featuring keynote lectures by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Professor Aaron Ciechanover from the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and Professor Fleur M. Ferguson from the University of California, San Diego. A festive farewell party will follow at 4:00 PM.

Source: Press Release Max Delbrück Center
The Max Delbrück Center bids farewell to Thomas Sommer