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AnniversarY
20 Years of the MDC
- A Chronology
Part 1 1992-1996
Protocol Barbara Urban Photos MDC
tran s lation Carol Oberschmidt
In 1991, after evaluating the GDR Academy of Sciences, the German Science Council
recommended that research in Berlin-Buch should continue its renowned tradition,
but with a new orientation. On January 1, 1992 the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular
Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch was established as a foundation under public law.
In a conversation with imdc, Founding Director Professor Detlev Ganten recalled the
Center’s early years.
Richard von Weizsäcker, former Federal President
of Germany and Detlev Ganten, Founding Director
of the MDC / from left
Over a period of six months from 1990
to 1991 Ganten, as a member of the
working group of the German Science
Council, made evaluation visits to the
biomedical institutes of the former
GDR. These visits were awaited with
trepidation because the fate of the
institutes – and the positions of the
scientists who worked there – hinged
on the evaluation outcome. The Central
Institutes of the GDR Academy of
Sciences in Berlin-Buch were the leading
institutions of the GDR – beacons of
research in the East European socialist
states. The Central Institutes at Buch
had famous Academy clinics like the
Robert Rössle Cancer Clinic and the
Franz Volhard Clinic for Cardiovascular
Diseases. After due consideration, the
recommendation of the Science Council
was to preserve the clinics and to
expand clinical research, and thus to
make Berlin-Buch a model institution in
reunited Germany.
June 1991: A farreaching
decision
In the early summer of 1991
Professor Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, who
was then vice president of the German
Research Foundation (DFG) and a
member of the founding committee
at Buch, and Dr. Konrad Buschbeck,
who represented the Science Council at
the Federal Science Ministry, came to
Heidelberg to ask Ganten if he could
imagine becoming the founding director
of the MDC. Ganten, then 50 years
old, was firmly established in pharmacological
research at the University
of Heidelberg. He had already turned
down various appointment offers in
Germany and abroad and was engaged
in appointment negotiations for a
professorship in Würzburg. After thinking
it over, he quickly decided to accept
the position at Berlin-Buch. Time was
short: According to Article 38 of the
German-German Unification Treaty
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