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international affairs
38 imdc03 2012
the Obelisk of technion, designed by
architect and engineer, Dr Santiago Calatrava, was
inaugurated at the Technion’s 85th anniversary
celebration in 2009. The obelisk rises to a height
of 28 meters.
Photo: Oksana Seumenicht
signGene
New Research School at the MDC
text barbara Urban
tran s lation carOL ObErschmiDt
The MDC has received funding for a new international
PhD program – the German-Israeli Helmholtz Research
School “Frontiers in Cell Signaling & Gene Regulation”
or “SignGene” for short. The partners of the MDC in
this Helmholtz Research School are the Technion – Israel
Institute of Technology and the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem (HUJI) as well as Humboldt-Universität zu
Berlin and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.
German-israeli collaboration
When Professor Claus Scheidereit became Program Coordinator for Cancer Research
at the MDC three years ago, the Management Committee (Leitungskollegium, GLK)
proposed establishing an international research school for the cancer program.
“Thomas Sommer suggested founding a research school together with Israeli partner
institutions,” Scheidereit recalled. “That was the starting signal for SignGene!”
Longstanding connections already existed between researchers in Haifa,
Jerusalem, and Berlin. As a first step, scientists at all five partner institutions were
surveyed concerning a concept for SignGene. They were asked to provide input both
about existing cooperative projects and possible new projects in the future. The
result was an impressive, dense network which would involve scientists from the
Technion, HUJI, MDC, HUB and the Charité. As Professor Scheidereit pointed out,
“What is so attractive about this network is that all of the partners complement
each other. The MDC is very strong in molecular biology, molecular genetics and
mouse models, but also in medical systems biology, a field in which we work closely