CeMM

🚀 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 #𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗥𝗼𝘄𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗼𝘂𝗿 #𝗖𝗲𝗠𝗠𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱!

On the topic of clinical science, we feature today three CeMM research groups:

🧬 CeMM Adjunct PI Kaan Boztug’s group (St. Anna Kinderkrebsforschung / Universitätsklinikum Bonn) develops precision medicine approaches for childhood immune and hematological diseases.

In 2025, the team introduced an AI-supported precision medicine approach for pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (pedAML), a rare and highly aggressive blood cancer in children. This method helps predict treatment responses as soon as pedAML is diagnosed.

At the Theater in der Josefstadt, Boztug said: "There is little incentive for the pharmaceutical industry to invest in this area, because the chances of large revenues are smaller than for common diseases. This is something that academic medicine has to take care of."

👉 https://bit.ly/4tUUNKG

🩺 CeMM Adjunct PI Thomas Reiberger’s group (Medizinische Universität Wien) investigates novel treatment strategies for liver fibrosis and portal hypertension (PH), a dangerous consequence of liver disease that claims over 2 million lives globally each year.

In 2025, the team showed that lingering low-grade inflammation may prevent liver blood vessels from relaxing even after the underlying cause of liver disease is removed, highlighting inflammation as a promising therapeutic target.

At the Burgtheater, the group reflected on the translational impact of their work: “Most of us are physician scientists and we work with patients on a daily basis. The bench-to-bedside principle is something that we live every day,” said Reiberger.

👉 https://bit.ly/3Q43NPQ

🔬 Psoriasis is one of the most common chronic inflammatory skin diseases, affecting tens of millions of people worldwide. CeMM Adjunct PI Georg Stary’s group (Medizinische Universität Wien) studies tissue-resident immune cells in chronic inflammation, infection, and cancer.

Previous psoriasis treatment approaches focused on inhibiting pro-inflammatory immune cells, which can have the unintended side effect of increasing susceptibility to infection. In 2025, the team uncovered a new potential avenue for treating chronic skin inflammation, such as psoriasis and eczema.

During the group discussion at the 𝘌𝘳𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘢 𝘏𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘴 𝘓𝘰𝘣𝘬𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘻 (Theatermuseum), Stary said: "Loss of the anti-inflammatory function of regulatory T cells is caused by a malfunction of the cellular metabolism." The researchers showed that restoring this function could offer a more specific approach to future therapies.

👉 https://bit.ly/4dGeik7

📸 Klaus Pichler / CeMM

Congratulations to Miquel Muñoz Ordoño, from the group of CeMM Adjunct PI and AITHYRA Scientific Director LS Georg Winter, who successfully defended today his PhD thesis entitled "Bridging chemical biology and functional genomics: high-throughput mechanistic dissection of small molecule degraders".

During his PhD studies, he developed a novel drug discovery platform to find new molecular glue degraders in collaboration with the Erb lab at Scripps Research. After discovery, he then investigated their mechanism of action by performing loss-of-function screens to understand the molecular machinery employed by the degraders. Moreover, he applied other functional genomics approaches to identify the residues and domains in the involved proteins that are key for the degraders to function.

Your colleagues and friends at CeMM are proud of you, Miquel. Well done! 🎉👏

📸 Matthew Spencer / CeMM

🚀 New edition of our with highlights from our !

On the topic of chemistry, we feature today two CeMM research groups:

🧪 CeMM Adjunct PI Nuno Maulide’s group (Universität Wien) (University of Vienna) pursues novel chemical reactions and molecular architectures to tap into this huge potential, which may then be applied to synthesize biologically and pharmacologically relevant compounds.

In 2025, the team discovered PyrAte, a fluorescent organic salt that, when conjugated with escitalopram, can label the serotonin transporter SERT in mouse brain tissue. Such PyrAte-drug conjugates could help scientists monitor SERT in real time and may also be useful for studying other membrane proteins.

At the 𝘈𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘔𝘢𝘹 of the University of Vienna, Maulide reflected on the role of serendipity in science: “The most fundamental and exciting scientific discoveries in the last 200 years were those that happened by accident.”

👉 https://bit.ly/4uhOkKW

🧬 Heating water above its boiling point under high pressure changes its properties, making it a valuable medium for diverse reactions. CeMM Adjunct PI Miriam Unterlass’s group (Fraunhofer-Institut für Silicatforschung ISC and Universität Würzburg) pioneers hydrothermal synthesis (HTS), using hot water as a sustainable alternative to toxic solvents in organic chemistry.

During their discussion at the Volkstheater Wien, Unterlass emphasized the importance of green chemistry: “Classical synthesis of organic materials is often toxic, both for people and the environment.” Recently, the team developed a new generation of fluorescent dyes, and they are now expanding their repertoire of non-toxic fluorescent dyes for a wide range of biological applications.

👉 https://bit.ly/4uhOl1s

📸 Klaus Pichler / CeMM

🚀 It's time for our campaign again, highlighting the research in our !

Today, we feature two CeMM research groups working on 𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴:

🩸 "We work on endothelial cells, which aren't the most commonly studied cell type, but they are in every single blood vessel, and every part of our body needs a blood vessel and needs it to work. What we give to society, hopefully in the end, is healthier blood vessels and a healthier life," said 𝗖𝗲𝗠𝗠 𝗣𝗜 𝗟𝗮𝘂𝗿𝗮 𝗱𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝗼𝗶𝗷 during their discussion at the 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘕𝘰𝘶𝘷𝘦𝘢𝘶 𝘓𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘭𝘭 of the Medizinische Universität Wien.

Her lab combines single-cell omics and functional vascular assays to study endothelial cell heterogeneity and its role in vascular aging and pathology. They have created a comprehensive atlas of human endothelial cell gene expression patterns across tissues and throughout the lifespan, and new hypotheses emerging from it can now be tested in in vitro blood vessel models.

👉 https://bit.ly/4tAI284

💻 Tissue function depends on proper spatial organization, which can deteriorate with age. Using deep learning to detect subtle structural patterns in large tissue image datasets, 𝗖𝗲𝗠𝗠 𝗣𝗜 𝗔𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗶𝗿𝗼’s group is developing tools to study aging in human tissues.

“We are making the invisible visible,” Rendeiro said during the group’s discussion at the Rabenhof Theater. Uncovering hidden patterns in spatial data could eventually enable clinicians to spot signs of disease before any symptoms arise. “Earlier detection and intervention would be game-changing for aging populations,” another group member added.

👉 https://bit.ly/4tzg64w

📸 Klaus Pichler / CeMM