03. November 2009 Helmholtz Head Office

From Blue Skies to Pots of Gold at the End of the Rainbow – Successful Collaborations between Research and Industry

Speech of the Helmholtz Association´s President Prof. Jürgen Mlynek at the Representation of Baden-Württemberg to the EU

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a pleasure to welcome you on behalf of the Helmholtz Association. “From Blue Skies to Pots of Gold at the End of the Rainbow” – to me the heading of our programme tonight sounds a bit like a fairy tale of the Grimm brothers. However, we all know that what we will be talking about this evening, that is: the long and rocky road from basic research to application, is no fairy tale at all. It is just work, and often enough it is quite a hard job. Not to mention that in the first place, pots of gold are being invested rather than earned.

But before our guests tonight will tell you about their experiences, let me give you a short introduction into the strategic vision of health research in Helmholtz.

Helmholtz is the umbrella organization of the 16 large federal research labs of Germany. As such, it has a clear mission: to secure our future by doing cutting-edge research. It is thus our job to tackle the great challenges that affect our society as a whole. What this means in the field of health is quite evident. Global mobility exposes us to previously unknown infectious diseases. We are breathing polluted air. Our society is ageing and we are eating too much. It is our task to fight the threats to our health arising from our way of life and the demographic development. In short you could also say that it is our mission to search and fight the big killers.

So, what is the Helmholtz approach to take up this challenge? Our strategy is threefold:

1. We are doing research that is, consistently disease oriented,
2. … translational
3. … and collaborative.

I will try to explain what this means.

1. First of all: We have adapted our structure to our mission. Nine of our 16 research centres are involved in health research. Five of these nine centres are exclusively devoted to biomedical research. In 2010, we will be spending 339 million Euros¹ on health research – basic funding, that is. However, our financing mechanism is tailored to fund Research Programmes in which these various centres are working in close collaboration instead of as individual institutions. These programmes are designed to target the most prominent threats to our health such as cancer, cardiovascular or infectious diseases.² In every programme, one centre is taking the lead, such as the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg for tumor diseases, the Helmholtz Centre Munich for environmental diseases, the Helmholtz Centre in Braunschweig for infectious diseases, the Max Delbrück Centre in Berlin for Cardiovascular diseases and the newly founded Helmholtz centre in Bonn for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer and Parkinson.
   
   Disease orientation has thus become the underlying principle of our organizational outline. This structure has the advantage to be cross- institutional and cross-disciplinary but still allows for a certain specialisation. And, most important, it is a structure that reminds us that the basic research we are doing, as fascinating as it may be in itself, is still part of a larger puzzle to be solved, namely a disease that has to be defeated. This type of use-inspired basic research is one of the best conditions to foster the transfer from the lab to medical practice that one can imagine. You may understand why I think that it is pointless to contrast fundamental and applied research. We are simply doing both, and both in the same vein – as a solution to a problem. I do also think that the often cited gap between basic and applied science would narrow or vanish if there were more organizations who, like us, provide integrated funding for both types of research.
   
   
2. Having this focus on diseases in view, translational research is a must, and this is the second point I would like to address.
   
   A nobel prize winning example for research that bridges the gap between basic research and application is, of course, the work of the Helmholtz researcher Harald zur Hausen. Not only did he discover the causal relationship between human papilloma viruses and cervix cancer, he also paved the way for the development of a vaccination against these viruses.Lutz Gissmann was involved from the start with the development of this vaccine, and I think that he will probably tell us more about this in a minute.
   
   What I would like to point out here is rather that we are trying to foster this kind of transfer from research to practice systematically by creating translational centres. Basic research produces a multitude of approaches to develop new therapeutical, diagnostic or preventive options. However, it often takes 10 to15 years until these new approaches are developed fully enough to be put into practice. That is, of course, much too long. We were therefore looking for ways to cut this long road short and came up with centres that put benches and bedsides in direct vicinity. The basic idea of these translational centres is to team up with a local hospital and to unite basic and clinical research under one roof. This helps to bundle the various expertise that is needed and promotes the transfer of insights gained from research into practice, but also vice versa. Translational centres thus provide excellent platforms for early clinical studies, including the necessary infrastructure such as biobanks and imaging facilities. Needless to say that these centres  also offer unique opportunities for the training of clinicians and research scientists alike and are serving as nuclei for industry collaboration. The translational centers launched so far are the national center for tumor diseases in Heidelberg (NCT), TwinCore in Hannover which deals with infectious diseases, the Experimental and Clinical Research Center in Berlin which is a cooperation of the Max Delbrück Centre and the Charité university hospital, the Comprehensive Pneumology Centre in Munich, and the German Center for Neurodegenerative diseases in Bonn.
   
   
3. The example of the translational centres takes me on to my third point. I told you that it is part of the Helmholtz strategy to collaborate. The translational research centres are excellent examples for local hubs formed by Helmholtz-Centres, university hospitals and further partners. What we are working on right now is to complement these local hubs by nationwide networks which have again a focus on a specific disease. This is a completely new model that has been launched by the newly founded German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases which comprises a core centre in Bonn, but also six³ partner sites at universities all over Germany working on Alzheimer, Parkinson and related diseases. This allows us to tackle such different aspects of the disease as its genetic foundations on the one hand and the care of patients on the other. It is our vision to extend the idea of these nationwide networks of excellence to further topics. Collaborations on cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are already under way. Finally, let me point out that this approach should not be limited to German research institutions. We have, of course, multiple ongoing collaborations with international partners. It is our aim to systematically involve these partners into our programmatic approach. I am especially glad that we have an INSERM representative here because INSERM is one of these strategic partners of the Helmholtz Association at the European level. We have hosted an INSERM unit at the German Cancer Research Centre for a number of years and plan to establish a twin unit in France next year.

I hope I was able to give you an idea of the Helmholtz approach to health research and the strategic issues we are pursuing. I am now looking forward to this evening’s presentations and I am happy to introduce Clive Cookson to you. Mr. Cookson is Science Editor of the Financial Times and will lead you through tonight’s programme.

Mr Cookson, the floor is yours!