„Systematic Endowment“
Adopting the motto "For a better future ..." MTZ®Foundation promotes science and research in the field of Human Medicine. The foundation supports the young generation of scientific talent and promotes their world class and cutting - edge work in biomedical stem cell and genetic research, which is in conformity with the highest bioethical standards. It promotes an interdisciplinary approach, that is, a conscious bringing together of traditional scientific approaches with medical Systems Biology.
The MTZ®Foundation – also with the help of the "Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft" –supports prestigious universities and institutes by placing a MTZ®-Award in each institution. The ensemble of the extraordinary MTZ®-Awards consciously traces the interdisciplinary collaboration in top level cell and gene research. These awards stand within the logical row „in vivo, in vitro and in silico“. The awarded research approaches are mutually dependent and are thus part of a system.
Scientists from Germany with an international reputation help us to grant awards for research work of world class. The cooperation between the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and these internationally recognized researchers within the MTZ®-Panels provides a rigorous selection of the MTZ®-Awardees. It contributes to the fact that the MTZ®-Award is today nationally recognized as a national brand - the first important scientific prize for innovative research in the vita of the younger generation of promising scientific talent.
Thus, it reaches new dimensions in pathogenic research and drug development.
Scientists at the Max-Plank-Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster are re-progamming cells to behave like embryonic stem-cells, developing the ability to form each of the more than 200 different cell types found in the human body. Generating these so-called Induced Pluripotent Stem cells (iPS) does not require the use of ovules or embryos.
The cutting-edge research approach of Medical Systems Biology especially opens new dimensions in the fight against cancer, when it comes to pathogenic research, drug development and new therapies.
The abundant data on individual cell components and functions, generated on different levels of life processes by means of the classical scientific research approach (“in vivo” and “in vitro”; genome, proteome, metabolome) is brought into a broader, more practical, and to some extent new coherence by Systems Biology’s use of computer-based modelling (“in silico”). The question to be answered is how complex biologic systems can operate by cross-linking their sub-processes. Only by this means can complex system characteristics, such as the regulation and control of biological systems and their system behavior, be understood and deciphered.
Medical practitioners, biologists, computer scientists working in bioinformatics and natural scientists from other fields collaborate across their disciplines. The function of the models obtained through their work is to facilitate the testing of hypotheses either experimentally or at the computer and thus to generate faster and more efficient research results. These simulations increasingly replace time-consuming laboratory experiments involving cell tissue and also enable predictions for further research activities possible.