Dieter Edbauer, Thomas Korn, and Christian Weber received the prestigious ERC Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Each receives 2.5 million Euro: Edbauer will use it for research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Korn will investigate how thymic B cells shape the T cell repertoire, and Weber will focus on the role of microRNAs in atherosclerosis. All three researchers are part of SyNergy - Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology.
Dieter Edbauer, Thomas Korn and Christian Weber have been awarded the prestigious ERC Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) and thus 2.5 million euros each: Edbauer will use it to research amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Korn will investigate how thymic B cells shape the T cell repertoire, and Weber will focus on the role of microRNAs in atherosclerosis.
Dieter Edbauer, Professor of Translational Neurobiochemistry at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU) and neuroscientist at DZNE’s Munich site, has received an Advanced Grant of 2.5 million Euros from the European Research Council (ERC) to investigate molecular mechanisms of the fatal nerve diseases amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
His research project focuses on errors in the genetic material and failed DNA repairs. Edbauer and colleagues previously discovered that these “repeats” lead to the creation of toxic proteins. The resulting diseases are therefore hereditary. The most common mutations are in a gene called C9orf72. In these patients, a short DNA sequence, i.e. certain genetic building blocks, is repeated hundreds or thousands of times.
His team will investigate the repair processes and their presumably fatal consequences. The findings, including those on other nerve diseases, should pave the way for new therapies for such repeat diseases.
Read more about his ERC Advanced Grant Research project on the website of DZNE
The thymus gland functions like a school for T cells. Here, progenitors to immune cells that could later attack the body’s own tissues are eliminated. Thomas Korn, Professor of Experimental Neuroimmunology at the Technical University of Munich Hospital (TUM Klinikum), and his team have discovered that B cells, another type of immune cell, play a role in this process. They present autoantigens – molecules that originate from the body itself – to developing T cells. In doing so, they help ensure that any T cells that misidentify these molecules as threats are removed. If this process goes awry, autoimmune diseases can develop.
In the BREAKING BAD project, Thomas Korn wants to investigate the mechanisms behind this in more detail, particularly in the development of autoimmune diseases such as Alzheimer's, and thus explore possible therapies.
Read more about his ERC Advanced Grant Research project on the website of TUM
Atherosclerosis is the principal cause of cardiovascular diseases, which remain the leading cause of death worldwide. Christian Weber, Director of the Institute for Cardiovascular Prevention at the LMU University Hospital, where he is Chair and Professor of Vascular Medicine, has demonstrated that a microRNA fragment called miR126-5p can protect against atherosclerosis by binding to and inhibiting the enzyme Caspase-3 in the cell nucleus, which otherwise confers programmed cell death. Weber has thus discovered a completely new function of microRNAs, which had generally been assumed to operate in the cytoplasm by suppressing or degrading messengerRNAs in a silencing complex. The new signaling pathway is mediated by the RNA-binding protein MEX3A, which will now be the focus of Weber’s ERC project MONOFUN-CV.
In his project, Weber takes MEX3A as the starting point to systematically investigate these newly discovered non-canonical miRNA mechanisms together with his team and identify genetic risk variants in humans. The further search for miRNA-protein pairs could serve as the basis for novel RNA-based therapeutics - not only for cardiovascular diseases, but also for other diseases.
Read more about his ERC Advanced Grant Research project on the website of TUM