Research Field Health
Goals and Roles
Our society and our health system face enormous challenges. Rising life expectancy, on the one hand, and steadily decreasing birth rates, on the other. This leads to an ever greater proportion of elderly people in the population. Accordingly, chronic and age-related diseases, like degenerative diseases of the nervous system and the skeleton, cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, lung diseases and chronic inflammatory diseases are becoming ever more important. Moreover, increasing global mobility facilitates the spread of newly emerging infectious diseases or the proliferation of infectious diseases widely believed to have been eradicated long ago.
This demographic and socioeconomic change has far-reaching consequences for the global health system, with health research worldwide facing major challenges. Chronic major diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, lung diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, infections and environmental hazards are the main topics of Helmholtz Health Research. Scientists study and explore the cause and genesis of these often complex diseases and develop new preventative, diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.
In recent years, the participating centres have increasingly drawn on new forms of collaboration with strong partners from medical schools, universities, other research organisations, and industry. Closely interacting with local partners from medical school, the Helmholtz Health Centres have begun to establish Translation Centres at their respective sites. At these centres, Helmholtz scientists and colleagues from medical school work closely together under one roof to make the exchange between lab and clinic even more efficient and to accelerate the transfer of research findings into clinical practice. To strengthen the research in the field of degenerative disorders of the brain, such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) was founded in June 2009. As a member of the Helmholtz Association, the DZNE based in Bonn maintains close collaborations with university partners in Göttingen, Magdeburg, Munich, Tübingen, Witten, and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. This flagship model is also attractive for other thematic fields.
The Helmholtz Association’s strategic alliances also play an important role in the fundamental biomedical sciences. A strategic alliance in basic research has been established between the DKFZ and the Zentrum für Molekulare Biologie Heidelberg (ZMBH) at the University of Heidelberg. Expertise and competence in basic and translational research on complex neuropsychiatric diseases was pooled as part of the new strategic alliance JARA-BRAIN between the University Hospital Aachen and the Health Field at the Forschungszentrum Jülich. New models of collaboration with leading enterprises like Siemens Health Care or Bayer Schering Pharma are also being explored. One of the future key tasks aims to advance German health research by integrating the expertise and competence at the Helmholtz Health Centres, university hospitals and other research organisations to create strong strategic partnerships.
The gain in biomedical knowledge and scientific insights in socioeconomically relevant areas of disease will represent one of primary activities in newly formed consortiums and networks to drive forward the production of concrete clinical applications. The initiatives developed by Helmholtz Health Research in fields like diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases or preventative medicine (“Helmholtz Cohort”) simultaneously invite strong partners to come and make an active contribution. Such a development will have a strong and sustainable effect on German Health Research and will serve to consolidate our leading international position.
The programmes in the funding period 2009-2013
The programmes and participating centres underwent a strategic-scientific evaluation at the beginning of 2008. Planned research goals and appropriate strategies for the successful implementation of the individual programmes were presented to high-ranking, international review panels for critical assessment. In the second period of programme-oriented funding beginning in 2009, research will build on three pillars: Excellent basic research; Analysis of complex biological systems (Systems Biology); and Translation of research findings into clinical application. The structure and goals of the Helmholtz Health Field were jointly reassessed, focused and largely tailored to the work and objectives of the leading Helmholtz research centre. Hence, interactions with partners from medical school are of particular importance in translational research and will be implemented in jointly established Translation Centres.
Involved Helmholtz Centres
Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research
GKSS Research Centre Geesthacht
Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health
GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research
Max Delbrück Center for Moleculare Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ
New programme-specific priorities:
The key priorities to be addressed intensively in the individual programmes include:
- in the field of cancer research, the development of test methods that provide information on the patients’ responsiveness to certain forms of therapy and their chances of recovery (predictive methods for personalised therapy); advancement of innovative radiation methods for tumour treatment, such as heavy-ion therapy, and the relevance of stem cells in cancer development and progression;
- in the field of cardiovascular research, the analysis of frequently occurring metabolic malfunctions and their impact in the development of cardiovascular diseases;
- in the field of diseases of the nervous system, the analysis of the underlying molecular, cellular and systemic processes; moreover, the development of novel imaging methods, such as MRI/PET technology for the simultaneous analysis of anatomical and functional details of organs and their testing in clinical studies;
- in the field of infection research, the intensified study of zoonoses, meaning viral or bacterial diseases, which can be transferred from animals to humans (for example SARS);
- in the field of environmental diseases, the field of inflammatory diseases caused by environmental factors (for example, nanoparticles) and therapeutic measures gained from these insights; furthermore, strengthening basic research on chemical modifications of the human genome and the associated changes in genetic control;
- in the field of analysis of multifactorial diseases, the development and characterisation of suitable animal models to gain a better understanding of the complex molecular changes during disease progression.
Strategic cross-programme initiatives
To be able to respond as quickly as possible to new developments, a flexible system of cross-cutting activities was created to contribute to the collaborative further development of important resources and technologies. These include systems biology, imaging techniques, regenerative medicine and disease models. The Research Field Health launched initiatives in two research policy and strategically significant subject areas: firstly, epidemiology and secondly, translational research.
Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine: The Helmholtz Cohort
Most chronic human diseases are typically diagnosed at a late stage, when the consequences of a disease are irreversible and possibly fatal. To meet this challenge, all Helmholtz Health Centres will expand their competence in the field of epidemiology. Epidemiological research aims to identify both the genetic and the environmental risk factors so as to prevent diseases or to detect and treat these at an early stage.
To create a unique national resource for future epidemiological research, Helmholtz Health Research has taken the first step towards establishing a major, prospective cohort study (“Helmholtz Cohort”) in Germany. This long-term study will examine healthy individuals for clinical parameters as well as their habits at the time of recruitment, and will subsequently monitor them over a period of 15 to 20 years. The following Centres are participating in the initiative alongside university partners: German Cancer Research Center, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Max Delbrueck Center (MDC) Berlin-Buch, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases, and Forschungszentrum Jülich.
Expanding Translational Research
Translational health research is another cross-programme priority. This comprises all projects jointly tackled by basic researchers and clinical scientists to transfer highly-promising approaches as quickly as possible into clinical application. Five Helmholtz Centres are currently establishing local Translation Centres in cooperation with university hospitals to significantly accelerate the process. The formation of strategic alliances with partners from the pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology and medical technology considerably reinforced the expertise in this field. The Helmholtz Health Centres’ declared goal is to take a leading national and international role in this field. Health Research will also create joint standards to train young scientists and improve career development prospects to offer excellent researchers attractive working conditions in national and international health research.
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