The Research Unit 942: Wnt-signaling in Tumor Progression and in Development

The starting point of the Research Unit 942 was the idea that bringing together researchers with backgrounds in developmental biology and cancer would lead to mutual enrichment of scientific and methodological interaction. This concept was unique and has proven successful in the first funding period (2008-2011). As demonstrated by joint publications and submitted manuscripts, many collaborations have been initiated which will be further intensified in the second period, which starts in April 2011.

 

There are many intense cooperations which have both strongly broadened the scientific expertise of the participating teams and saved resources. These technical collaborations will be continued in the second funding period ,e.g. the use of mouse models, array analyses, confocal microscopy and specialized culture systems. There have also been numerous cooperations with scientists outside of the FOR 942, which have yielded considerable added scientific value. Three of these are now incorporated into the research group for the second funding period. Tim Beissbarth, Dept. of Med. Statistics and member of the clinical research group rectal cancer KFO 179, supervised the analysis of the gene array data of SP 2. These results are the basis of a novel project with a bioinformatic approach proposed for the second funding period (SP 8), thus implementing our originally planned strategy to incorporate also biomathematical analyses into the FOR 942. Gregor Bucher, Department of Developmental Biology and head of the FOR iBeetle, participated actively in our seminar series and retreats, maintains active cooperations esp. with SP 7 and 8 and will associate with the FOR 942 in the 2nd funding period with a project already supported by the DFG.  Henning Urlaub, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, who also holds a professorial appointment in Bioanalytics at the UMG, will now contribute his unique expertise to the central project SP-Z.