Press Releases Archive
04.05.2017
German Science Council approves 53 million euros for new microbiome and cancer research institute
Personalized medicine in Tübingen takes revolutionary new approach to the human organism, considering “M3” - malignancy, metabolome, and microbiota
The German government’s main science policy board, the German Science Council, has approved 53 million euros in funding for an Institute of Microbiota and Cancer Research in Tübingen. The measure is due to be passed by the German federal and state governments at their joint science conference on 23 June.
The new institute is to be constructed on the University’s Schnarrenberg medical campus and to provide some 4,200 square meters of space for laboratories, offices, and teaching facilities. Building is slated to start in 2018 and to end in 2022. The institute is to house 18 research groups of some 200 researchers in total. The State Minister of Science, Research and the Arts, Theresia Bauer, expressed her satisfaction with the decision: “This M3 research institute represents enormous support for the expertise of the Tübingen University Hospitals in personalized medicine.”
“M3” stands for “malignancy, metabolome, and microbiota.” Microbiota include all microbes which can live in or on the body, and a metabolome is the complete set of small-molecule chemicals found within a biological sample. Malignant tumors are the third “M” to be the focus of research at the new institute. “We aim to link up tumor research with that into microbiota and metabolic changes, thereby opening up paths to new and better treatments for types of cancer,” says Professor Nisar Peter Malek, medical director of Internal Medicine I at the Tübingen University Hospitals and designated director of the future institute.
“The sequencing of the human genome, the introduction of high-throughput biological data processing, and the development of new imaging techniques have revolutionized Medicine in the past two decades,” says the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Professor Ingo Autenrieth. The new technologies have helped in the development of new drugs and tumor treatments, he adds, saying many forms of cancer are even more complex than previously thought: “We still do not know enough about the biological systems behind the causes and spread of diseases and how they influence one another.”
Malek underscored the relevance of the newly-discovered roles played by human microbiota: “Billions of microbes live in human beings, which influence human metabolism with a large amount of metabolites,” he explains, “so we have to see the human body as a superorganism, a complex unit made up of the human genome, the body’s cells, and its microbiota.” Communication and regulation of this complex system are carried out via a myriad of metabolic products, which become active in the immune system as well as in disease processes such as inflammatory reactions. “This way of looking at it opens up many new options to alter various biological processes in the human body,” Malek says. “This ranges from dietary measures, to the use of local or systemic antibiotics, to the transfer of specific micro-organisms.”
The M3 institute will move forward in this new field of research. The planned 18 research groups will work on three main areas, dealing with the development of new model systems, mathematical modelling and system biology analysis, and experimental treatment. Along with experts from cancer research, the institute will include specialists from the fields of infection and diabetes research, bioinformatics, system biology and pharmacology from the Universities of Stuttgart and Tübingen. They will work closely with the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen.
Some 42 million of the more than 53 million euros in funding will be used for the building, 3.8 million will be used to equip it, and another 7.5 million euros is earmarked for major instrumentation. The state of Baden-Württemberg and the Faculty of Medicine are to each cover 25 percent of the total costs.
Further information
<link https: www.wissenschaftsrat.de>www.wissenschaftsrat.de/index.php=
Contact:
Professor Dr. Nisar Malek
Tübingen University Hospitals
Internal Medicine I
Phone +49 7071 29-82721
Nisar.Malek[at]med.uni-tuebingen.de