ERC Funding for Four MDC Researchers:

The neurobiologists Prof. Dr Gary Lewin (MDC) and Prof. Thomas Jentsch (MDC/Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology, FMP) each receive 2.5 million Euro, the two heads of Young Investigators Groups Prof. Dr Michael Gotthardt and Dr Jan-Erik Siemens (both MDC) each are granted 1.5 million Euro. These four top-class researchers were selected from amongst several thousands of applicants. The ERC funding goes for a period of five years and begins in 2012.
Prof. Lewin conducts research on the African naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber), also known as the sand puppy or desert mole rat, one of the most extraordinary mammals on Earth, which lives under the most extreme conditions and does not know pain. Prof. Lewin intends to use the ERC funding to identify those genes allowing for the naked mole rat's unusual life style. Prof. Jentsch's research focuses on ion transport and its significance for the function of cells and the entire organism. The physicist and physician uses the ERC funding for investigating ion channels regulating the internal environment and volume of cells and their internal compartments. These channels play an important role in the development of diseases of the nervous system and other organs. The physician and cardiovascular researcher Prof. Gotthardt researches the largest known protein of the human body, titin, in the context of hereditary muscle and cardiovascular diseases. Titin forms an elastic framework within the muscles of the heart and skeleton and expands like a spring. He recently discovered a factor modifying titin in the development of cardiac diseases. He intends to use the ERC grant to investigate in particular the potential of this factor for new approaches to treatment. The biochemist and neurobiologist Dr Siemens researches how mammals regulate their body temperature. In doing so, he wants to find out, which cells in the brain, that is, in the hypothalamus, form the "thermostat" keeping the core temperature at a constant 37 degree Celsius. He further intends to use the ERC funds to research how the body's own temperature sensors, nerve endings in the skin, register the temperature in the environment and transform this information into neuronal signals perceived as "hot" and "cold".
In 2002 and, respectively, 2008, Prof. Gotthardt and Dr Siemens were awarded the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which enabled them to return to Germany from the USA and to establish their research groups at the MDC.

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