The research of the Department of Molecular Biology is focussed on the molecular analysis of cellular signal transduction mechanisms and their significance for normal biological processes and pathophysiological phenomena such as cancer.
Disturbances in the communication between cells have gatal consequences: All cancer types and many other human diseases develop because the cellular signal transduction process is disturbed. Axel Ullrich and his team in the Research Department “Molecular Biology” are investigating the communication system by which information is transmitted from the cell surface into the cell ́s interior. The researchers want to understand how gene defects result in diseases in order to develop targeted drugs.
Biologists are focusing on these RTKs because growth factors and their receptors also play an important role in the development of cancer. The goal of the researchers is to gain insight into the cellular signal transduction network of cancer cells and thus to advance the development of new target-specific strategies against different cancer types. Ullrich’s findings formed the basis for Herceptin, the first tailor-made active pharmaceutical agent with anticancer effect, which intervenes in the cellular signaling chain of breast cancer cells. Herceptin is an antibody which targets and inhibits a receptor that is excessively produced and activated in 30 percent of all breast cancers – normal cells, by contrast, are spared.