The new LMU research center ICON at the Großhadern campus has been inaugurated. It brings together interdisciplinary research into diseases of the cardiovascular system - from research to medical application. The new building has around 2,300 square meters, the costs of 63 million euros are shared by the federal government and the Free State of Bavaria, supplemented by co-financing from LMU and the LMU Hospital. ICON is the sixth research building at LMU Munich to be funded by the federal government and the Free State of Bavaria since the program began in 2007.
Cardiovascular diseases are the most common cause of death in Germany. Many diseases that affect the heart and its blood vessels also have a metabolic cause. Strategies aimed at preventing or treating diseases such as heart attacks, diabetes or strokes must therefore always take metabolic causes into account.
The newly opened research center “Interfaculty Center for Endocrine and Cardiovascular Disease Network Modelling and Clinical Transfer” (ICON) on the LMU campus Großhadern/Martinsried bundles interdisciplinary science relating to diseases of the cardiovascular system and brings innovative therapeutic approaches from research to clinical application.
A research concept that is unique in Europe, state-of-the-art technical equipment and work on optimized large animal models offer ideal conditions for practical innovation. The ICON is excellently equipped, particularly in terms of imaging procedures, surgical technology and animal husbandry.
ICON is the sixth research building at LMU to be funded by the federal government and the Free State of Bavaria since the program began in 2007. The total cost of the project, amounting to 63 million euros, is shared by the federal government and the Free State of Bavaria, supplemented by co-financing from LMU and LMU Hospital.
Over the past few decades, modern basic research has gained numerous insights into the causes and mechanisms of disease and developed possible therapeutic approaches. However, in order to actually bring innovative concepts into clinical trials and later into the clinic, such concepts must first be validated in suitable large animal models.
This is precisely where the new ICON research institute comes in to make translation more effective. LMU physicians and veterinarians can draw on a wealth of experience not only in basic biomedical research, but also in the field of research on large animal models.
In the new ICON center, they want to focus this expertise on new diagnostic and therapeutic methods for endocrine-metabolic and cardiovascular diseases and validate such approaches preclinically in tailor-made, in particular genetically modified large animals. The researchers at ICON will work closely with the LMU Hospital in terms of space and content.