By Birgit Buerkner
In a time of medical excellence, there are still many diseases that cannot be cured. Cancer, autoimmune processes and some infections, the latest example being Corona. Charité scientists are developing the next generation of drugs that should bring about a breakthrough in this problem.
The drugs are specialized living cells! Two new research buildings are being erected on the Virchow-Klinikum campus in Wedding especially for the top researchers. The topping-out ceremony will be celebrated next Monday.
Equipped with ten hermetically sealed, sterile high-tech laboratories, they offer optimal conditions for the development of pharmaceuticals according to EU standards. Among other things, the “Berlin Center for Advanced Therapies” (“Berlin Center for Advanced Therapies”) will move in.
► How do the novel drugs work?
“We have learned to distinguish human cells based on their surface features. We can read the molecules and receptors located there like an ID card,” says founding director Prof. Petra Reinke (69).
Prof. Petra Reinke opens a nitrogen tank in which cells are preserved at minus 180 degrees in what is now the old research building on Föhrer Straße. Conditions are cramped there Photo: Stefanie Herbst
“Each cell has acquired special properties. T defense cells, for example, are important for the body’s immune response. Some of these cells are even able to recognize and eliminate camouflaged tumors. Others, so-called regulatory T cells, downregulate excessive inflammatory reactions.”
The researchers can identify all of these cells in human blood, isolate them and multiply them in a nutrient solution in the laboratory. They can then be used in millions of concentrations as therapeutic agents via an infusion. At the moment they are still in the study phase.
Laboratory assistant Martin Gutte uses a pipette to fill test tubes with cells floating in red nutrient solution Photo: Stefanie Herbst
► Who can be healed?
“We can administer T cells, which attack highly specific tumor cells, to cancer patients,” says Reinke. “Regulatory T cells help in autoimmune diseases to calm misguided immune cells attacking tissue.” For example in rheumatism, lupus erythematosus, neurodermatitis or ulcerative colitis.
The cells multiplied in the incubator at 37 degrees. This can be seen with the naked eye as cloudiness in the nutrient solution Photo: Stefanie Herbst
The new building complex is scheduled for completion at the end of next year. The cost of 29.5 million euros will be paid equally by the federal government and the state.
Biotechnologist Sandra Münch examines the cells in the so-called flow cytometer for surface characteristics Photo: Stefanie Herbst
The research center “The Simulated Human” will also be accommodated. In it, scientists model human cell and organ functions in order to simulate the mechanisms by which diseases develop.
The findings from the laboratory should immediately benefit patients.
