Grant Renewal for MEDEP

DFG approves funding for CRC 992 “Medical Epigenetics - from basic mechanisms to clinical applications”

The German Research Foundation (DFG) granted funding for the Collaborative Research Centre CRC992 “Medical Epigenetics - from basic mechanisms to clinical applications” (MEDEP), Freiburg. The MPI-IE participates in this research consortium with four research groups and one research facility.

Modern life science has entered a stage in which the study of DNA can not explain all aspects heritable physiology and pathology. New findings of epigenetic research enable a better understanding of diseases. Epigenetics is not just about mapping and analysing individual genes that are transcribed and expressed, rather epigenetics aims to detect all the functional regions of the genome and of the so-called transcriptome, i.e. the total of all the RNA in a cell. Epigenetic mechanisms structure the chromosomes, control gene activity on cell- and tissue-specific level and ensure that genomic regions remain muted. Thus, knowledge about these regulatory processes of the genome contributes in diagnosis and therapy of diseases like of cancer, neurodegenerative syndromes, diabetes as well as immune and cardiovascular diseases.

The CRC 992 »Medical Epigenetics«, MEDEP, provides a translational program for epigenetic research. Scientists from the University Freiburg Medical Centre, the University of Freiburg and the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics team up in a consortium that explores how findings in basic research on epigenetics can contribute in clincial application. The Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics participates the program with the Labs of Asifa Akhtar, Thomas Jenuwein, Nicola Iovino and Ritwick Sawarkar. Further the Bioinformatics Facility of the MPI-IE, headed by Thomas Manke, supports the research consortium. The funding starts on July 1, 2016 and is scheduled to run for four years. Overall, the program is funded with 12 million euros.