The Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit is an alliance between the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and the Medical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg. Its primary aim is to uncover the molecular basis of disease and to speed the transformation of biomedical discoveries into personalized medicine strategies.

Founded in 2002, the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit (MMPU) comprises nine inter-disciplinary research teams. It is co-directed by Prof. Andreas Kulozik from the Angelika-Lautenschläger Hospital for Children and Adolescents at the University of Heidelberg, by Prof. Matthias Hentze and Dr. Wolfgang Huber from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, and is housed in the Otto-Meyerhof-Research Center on the Medical Campus of the University of Heidelberg, Germany.

European Molecular Biology Laboratory campus in Heidelberg. Photo: Photolab EMBL

Otto-Meyerhof-Research Center in Heidelberg. Photo: Medienzentrum Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg

Research themes

Research themes place emphasis on common diseases as well as on rare diseases with a particular medical need.

In 2023 more than 100 international scientists work on the following nine research themes:

• ‘Diseases of mRNA metabolism’, headed by Andreas Kulozik and Matthias Hentze
• ‘Iron homeostasis in health and disease’, headed by Martina Muckenthaler and Matthias Hentze.
• ‘Chronic Pain and Homeostasis’ headed by Rohini Kuner, Theodore Alexandrov, Robert Prevedel and Jan Siemens.
• ‘Molecular Pediatric Oncology’ headed by Jan Korbel and Andreas Kulozik.
• ‘Systems Medicine of Cancer Drugs’ headed by Sascha Dietrich, Wolfgang Huber and Junyan Lu.
• ‘Stem Cell–Niche Networks in Ageing and Disease’ headed by Caroline Pabst, Judith Zaugg, Anthony D. Ho and Carsten Müller–Tidow.
• ‘Chronic Kidney Diseases’ headed by Rainer Pepperkok, Julio Saez-Rodriguez and Matias Simons.
• ‘Heart Development and Diseases’ headed by Eileen Furlong and Johannes Backs.
• ‘Microbiota Drug Metabolism and Cancer Therapy, headed by Matthias Ebert, Tianzuo Zhan and Michael Zimmermann.

Selected recent publications

• Eduati, F.; Utharala, R.; Madhavan, D.; et al. (2018). "A microfluidics platform for combinatorial drug screening on cancer biopsies". Nat Commun. 9 (1): 2434. doi:10.1038/s41467-018-04919-w. PMC 6015045. PMID 29934552.
• Hauer, C.; Sieber, J.; Schwarzl, T.; et al. (2016). "Exon Junction Complexes Show a Distributional Bias toward Alternatively Spliced mRNAs and against mRNAs Coding for Ribosomal Proteins". Cell Rep. 16 (6): 1588–603. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2016.06.096. PMC 4978704. PMID 27475226.
• Kunz, JB.; Rausch, T.; Bandapalli, OR.; et al. (2015). "Pediatric T-lymphoblastic leukemia evolves into relapse by clonal selection, acquisition of mutations and promoter hypomethylation". Haematologica. 100 (11): 1442–50. doi:10.3324/haematol.2015.129692. PMC 4825305. PMID 26294725.
• Guida, C; Altamura, S; Klein, FA; et al. (2015). "A novel inflammatory pathway mediating rapid hepcidin-independent hypoferremia". Blood. 125 (14): 2265–75. doi:10.1182/blood-2014-08-595256. PMC 4383800. PMID 25662334.
• Selvaraj, D; Gangadharan, V; Michalski, CW; et al. (2015). "A Functional Role for VEGFR1 Expressed in Peripheral Sensory Neurons in Cancer Pain". Cancer Cell. 27 (6): 780–96. doi:10.1016/j.ccell.2015.04.017. PMC 4469373. PMID 26058077.
• Hanack, C; Moroni, M; Lima, WC; et al. (2015). "GABA blocks pathological but not acute TRPV1 pain signals". Cell. 160 (4): 759–70. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2015.01.022. PMID 25679765.
• Bandapalli, OR.; Schuessele, S.; Kunz, JB.; et al. (2014). "The activating STAT5B N642H mutation is a common abnormality in pediatric T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia and confers a higher risk of relapse". Haematologica. 99 (10): e188–92. doi:10.3324/haematol.2014.104992. PMC 4181267. PMID 24972766.
• Bhuvanagiri, M.; Lewis, J.; Putzker, K.; et al. (2014). "5-azacytidine inhibits nonsense-mediated decay in a MYC-dependent fashion". EMBO Mol Med. 6 (12): 1593–609. doi:10.15252/emmm.201404461. PMC 4287977. PMID 25319547.
• Altamura, S; Kessler, R; Gröne, N; et al. (2014). "Resistance of ferroportin to hepcidin binding causes exocrine pancreatic failure and fatal iron overload". Cell Metab. 20 (2): 359–67. doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2014.07.007. PMID 25100063.

References

• Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung/Nr. 22, "Gemeinsam für eine molekulare Medizin", 28.01.2011:
• European Molecular Biology Laboratory newsletter article on the development of science at the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit, February 2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20110929214922/http://www.embl.de/mmpu/mmpu/history/hist_feb06_pdf.pdf
• European Molecular Biology Laboratory and University of Heidelberg Press Release on the second phase of the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit, 18.07.2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20110929214743/http://www.embl.de/mmpu/mmpu/history/hist_jul05_pdf.pdf
• Nature, vol. 423, 15 May 2003, "The Muenster match": https://web.archive.org/web/20110929215108/http://www.embl.de/mmpu/mmpu/history/muenster_match_nature_pdf.pdf
• European Molecular Biology Laboratory Press Release on the establishment of the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit, 25.01.2002: https://web.archive.org/web/20110929214603/http://www.embl.de/mmpu/mmpu/history/hist_jan02_pdf.pdf

External links

• Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit page at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory
• Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit page at the University Medical Center