New research project

Philipp Rathert receives research grant by the Wilhelm Sander-Foundation.

Philipp Rathert, who joined the IBC in October 2015, was successful in securing research funding from the Wilhelm Sander-Foundation. The grant will support a project aiming to explore the regulatory network of BRD4, a promising cancer drug target which recently entered clinical trials for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia.

Philipp Rathert, group leader at the IBC, is interested in the functional characterization of large chromatin complexes and chromatin regulatory networks. Different layers of cross-talk between several components of this highly complex regulatory system are emerging and misregulation of the epigenome is a feature of many different diseases, especially cancer. A central question became how proteins that act on chromatin or DNA interact with one another to switch genes on or off at the right time point to establish and maintain a healthy cellular state. Advances in our ability to characterize the dynamics and wiring of chromatin regulators, as well as the induced transcriptional output under different conditions, will substantially enhance our understanding of the dynamics of gene regulation. Therefore, Philipp Rathert combines state-of-the-art functional genetic tools (RNAi or CRISPR/Cas9) with cell biology and biochemical assays.

The Wilhelm Sander Foundation has granted since its inception over 220 million euros for projects of clinical and clinical-experimental research. Its mission is to promote medical research, especially in the field of cancer.