Together with Federal Research Minister Annette Schavan and the Berlin Science Senator Jürgen Zöllner, Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel visited the Max-Delbrück-Center (MDC). The Experimental and Clinical Research Center is one of the world's largest leading institutions for basic biomedical research. Invited from the President Prof. Dr. Jürgen Mlynek of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, the Chancellor provided an insight into the research and innovative technologies. They visited, amongst other things like a complex metabolic chamber and the latest DNA sequencing device, the NanoWizard® AFM system from JPK Instruments from Berlin.
The research group of Professor Spuler is part of the ECRC and conducts research on muscular diseases and the regulation of muscle growth. For her studies, the research group combines the Atomic Force Microscopy by JPK platform with the latest laser-scanning confocal microscopy to a powerful tool for live cell analysis. The JPK NanoWizard® AFM system provides an optimum performance in liquids and in air with the unique ability to perform simultaneously fully light-microscopic measurements. Professor Spuler says: "We hope to get a better understanding about the dynamic representation of the nanostructures of the muscle membrane, the membrane healing mechanism and signal transduction."
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About Max-Delbrück-Center
The Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine is a major biomedical research institute located in the northeastern corner of Berlin, Germany. The MDC was founded in 1992 with a mission of translating discoveries from molecular research into applications to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of major human diseases. Currently about 1,400 staff members and guests work at the MDC. The annual institutional budget amounts to approximately 68 million Euros, 90 percent of which is received from the federal government and 10 percent from the State of Berlin. The ECRC comprises research labs and several outpatient clinics, clinical training programs, and offers funding for groups and specific translational projects, enabling close collaboration between MDC researchers and clinical scientists of the Charité.