Main Research Areas

Our Institute provides a modern and dynamic infrastructure for our researchers to produce findings that expand our understanding of fundamental biological processes, improve diagnostics of genetic disorders and inform development of future therapeutic options for the benefit of patients.

The range of our research activities is wide. This is a selection of key issues and disorders that our research groups focus on:

Molecular & cellular mechanisms of aging

What genes, signalling pathways and mechanisms are involved in the physiological process of aging, in rare congenital disorders with premature aging and in the pathogenesis of aging-related diseases?
⇒ Research groups Kornak, Wollnik

Novel therapeutic options by genome editing

How can we use CRISPR/Cas technology to develop specific molecular therapies for congenital disorders as for example heart diseases or bone disorders?
⇒ Research groups Kornak, Wollnik

Identifying genes & unravelling molecular mechanisms

We identify novel genes and variants related to rare diseases and explore gene functions and variant effects on molecular mechanisms.
⇒ Research groups Kornak, Pauli, Wollnik

Hereditary hearing loss

We aim to find new genes or gene variants that are associated with syndromic or non-syndromic forms of hereditary hearing loss.
⇒ Research groups Vona, Wollnik

Pathogenesis of cancer

What signalling pathways interact in the pathogenesis of rhabdomyosarcoma and pituitary adenoma?
⇒ Section of Molecular Developmental Genetics
What genes and gene variants are involved in familial cancers?
⇒ Research groups Kaulfuß, Wollnik

Bioinformatic analysis of genome dynamics

Our NGS-based analyses generate enormous amounts of complex data. We develop and establish in-house bioinformatic pipelines that allow us to apply mathematical and statistical tools for processing, analyzing and interpreting data in a manner that provides new insights into various aspects of genome dynamics.
⇒ Research group Zibat

We investigate molecular processes in single cells, in various tissues, at different times in the course of development, in healthy organisms and in disease. For this, we use state-of-the-art next-generation sequencing technology including genome sequencing, transcriptome analysis, single-cell sequencing and other methods. Experiments in cell systems as, e.g., iPS cells, organoids, bone-on-a-chip or in model organisms (mouse, zebrafish) improve our understanding of how mutations impact on protein function and how proteins interact in molecular mechanisms and signalling cascades.