Science Council recommends joint research building by Charité and Freie Universität Berlin
Berlin, 21.04.2023
Preventing disease. Understanding mechanisms of health. Keeping people healthy for a long time. This is what medicine of the future should look like. Top researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin soon want to work across disciplines on these urgent social questions. The location for the future vision of health research: a listed building in southwest Berlin. Renovated and refurbished, the former Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology will house the Berlin Centre for the Biology of Health (BC-BH). The Science Council of the Federal Government and the Länder today recommended* the proposal for the joint research building to the tune of around 54 million euros for funding.
It is about nothing less than a paradigm shift. The current concept of medicine was decisively shaped at the end of the 18th century by the scholar and physician Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902). It is based on the idea that the origin of diseases lies in disturbances of the normal functions of the cell. Since then, mechanisms that cause diseases have been the focus of medicine. Interrupting such disease-promoting signalling networks as a therapeutic approach has been widely proven successful.
“There is, however, a paradox inherent in this conception of medicine, namely that our molecular understanding of health is based almost exclusively on research into diseases,” says basic scientist Prof. Dr. Andreas Diefenbach, Director of the Institute for Microbiology and Infection Immunology at Charité. Together with the Clinic Director for Gastroenterology, Infectiology and Rheumatology at Charité Prof. Dr. Britta Siegmund and research colleg:ues from the Free University of Berlin, he has launched the application for a joint research building, a place of exchange and innovation of supra-regional significance, financed by the federal and state governments in accordance with Article 91b of the Basic Law. Instead of researching disease mechanisms, the focus is to be on the mechanisms of health and molecular strategies for maintaining health.
Researching what keeps people healthy
“We are in the midst of a fundamental social and ecological change that requires a new conception of medicine,” says Prof. Diefenbach, who also holds an Einstein Professorship from the foundation of the same name. “An ageing population, changing lifestyles and rapidly changing environmental conditions are leading to an increase in diseases that already account for a large part of the disease burden in Europe. These include, above all, chronic inflammatory, rheumatological and neurodegenerative diseases, but also metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.” One way out of this situation: novel strategies in medicine that use molecular mechanisms to maintain health and serve the early detection of diseases.
Such a rethink in the life sciences is currently taking place worldwide. Health is increasingly seen as a process based on ever-active molecular and cellular mechanisms, so-called Hallmarks of Health. These health-preserving networks are fundamentally different from those that promote disease. They represent a group of communicating mechanisms that strengthen the organism’s resistance and tolerance to disease and thus stabilise the state of health.
“It is precisely these health-preserving mechanisms that we want to make accessible for the prevention and therapy of diseases, so that people have as long a healthy lifespan as possible,” says Prof. Siegmund, describing the BC-BH’s concern. The joint research building on the Charité Campus Benjamin Franklin, which is geared towards interdisciplinary work, is intended to contribute to identifying such mechanisms and researching their disruption in inflammatory systemic diseases in the long term. This approach is unique in Germany and internationally.
Highly interactive joint research area
Today, the German Science Council, the most important science policy advisory body, voted in favour of funding the project. Based on this recommendation, the Joint Science Conference of the Federal Government and the Länder (GWK) will decide in early summer on funding for the research building, half of whose costs will be borne by the Federal Government and half by the Land of Berlin.
“In this important research building, scientists from Freie Universität and Charité will investigate the molecular foundations and mechanisms of health. It is a new and visionary goal to place healthy bodily functions at the centre of research,” emphasises Ulrike Gote, Senator for Science, Health, Care and Equality and Chair of the Supervisory Board of Charité. “This innovative approach of the Berlin researchers shows in which international league Berlin’s health research plays. It is also an important new perspective for health care and thus for Berlin as a health city. I am therefore pleased that the Science Council has recommended another research building for Berlin for funding, this time located on the Benjamin Franklin Campus of the Charité and thus in the southwest of the city. I am particularly pleased that, for the first time in the research construction funding programme, a new building is not being built and a listed building is being renovated in a sustainable and climate-friendly way.”
Researchers from Charité and Freie Universität Berlin will share the BC-BH. It will move into the building of the former Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology of the Free University, an important post-war modernist building that is now a listed building. After renovation and conversion, the 3,170 square metre building will provide laboratory and research space for about 150 staff and scientists belonging to 17 working groups and eight junior research groups. The already organically designed architecture and open laboratory structures are intended to help bring together the disciplines involved and facilitate exchange at all levels.
Scientific subjects such as clinical medicine, microbiology, immunology, biology, biochemistry or biophysics will come together with state-of-the-art technologies such as single cell analysis or metabolomics and with analytical disciplines such as systems biology, bioinformatics, modelling and machine learning in the building. “We are counting on this highly interactive research space, because the coming together at the interfaces of the disciplines will generate synergy effects that will make completely new insights possible,” says Günter M. Ziegler, President of Freie Universität Berlin. “We are delighted that the research building, which was designed in the 1970s, can once again become a place of cutting-edge biomedical research.”
Top international research and translation
In four main research areas, the scientists of Charité and Freie Universität Berlin want to approach the state of health in the new rooms from 2028. The first task is to analyse mechanisms that lead to the organism’s successful adaptation to changes in the environment. This is highly relevant clinically, as the disease patterns in focus essentially represent maladaptations to an environment that has changed rapidly over the last 150 years. Another focus is dedicated to changes in these signalling networks in chronic inflammatory diseases. Building on the results of preclinical and clinical investigations, the first innovative prevention and therapy approaches based on strengthening health-preserving mechanisms will be tested. And finally, research results will not only find their way from the laboratory to humans, but data from application, from therapy response or failure, will in turn allow conclusions to be drawn about mechanisms of health.
The BC-BH is an essential project of the Berlin University Alliance (BUA), the association of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin and Charité, with the aim of jointly developing science in Berlin. The direct connection of the BC-BH to the clinical facilities on the Benjamin Franklin campus and to the bioscientific environment in the south of Berlin are ideal for the translational orientation, i.e. the idea of quickly bringing research results into patient care and observations from there back into the laboratory.
“The planned infrastructure and equipment will provide the scientists involved with an excellent environment to identify important health-preserving mechanisms and to make these findings useful for patients. The BC-BH will further improve interfaces and synergies between Charité and Freie Universität Berlin. Together we want to further expand and develop the relevant field of health maintenance and prevention as well as the field of immunology,” says Prof. Dr. Joachim Spranger, Dean of the Charité. In order to be able to work on scientific issues at an international level, the BC-BH will be equipped with modern large-scale equipment. Among other things, technology units for single-cell analysis and imaging are planned, which will contribute significantly to interdisciplinary work.
Berlin Centre for the Biology of Health (BC-BH)
A total floor space of 3,169 square metres is planned for the research building. The total costs of the BC-BH, including initial furnishings and large-scale equipment, amount to 54.4 million euros. The research building is financed half by the state of Berlin and half by the federal government. The operating costs will be borne jointly by FU Berlin and Charité in proportion to the actual shares of use, around 70 per cent Charité and around 30 per cent FU Berlin. The planning and construction of the research building will be coordinated and carried out by the Charité’s construction department as the building owner. The project is to be planned and realised between 2024 and 2028.