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The brain researcher Dr. Jochen Meier of the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany, has been selected to head a Helmholtz University Young Investigators Group at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch beginning in July 2006. For the next five years, he will receive a total of 1.25 million euros for his research group "RNA Editing and Hyperexcitability Disorders". Half of the grant will come from the Initiative and Networking Fund of the President of the Helmholtz Association. The MDC, a member of this research organization, will fund the second half of the grant. Dr. Meier is studying information processing in the brain, focusing particularly on RNA editing associated with diseases in which the central nervous system is hyperexcited, e.g. in case of epilepsy and muscle cramps. For 2006, the Helmholtz Association has established a total of 17 new Young Investigator Groups, 15 of which are in conjunction with a university.
In a healthy organism, a balance is maintained between the excitation and inhibition of nerve cells (neurons). Within this context, Dr. Meier is more closely scrutinizing the glycine receptor - one of the neuronal receptors that inhibits electrical impulses in the brain. When these receptors are impaired, (thus, "blowing the fuse" in the affected person), hyperexcitable states ensue as is the case with epileptic seizures or muscle cramps.
Studying the brain at the molecular level, Dr. Meier is investigating a process known in research as "RNA editing". After the DNA text of the genes has been transcribed into RNA, individual letters are replaced with others by enzymatic processing.
As a result, the original genetic text (encoded in the DNA language) no longer corresponds exactly to the resulting protein text (derived from the RNA language). "By this means, the cell succeeds in disregarding the information coded in the genome, and, through specific alterations, can give its own genetic text a completely different meaning," says the biologist, explaining this phenomenon.
RNA editing is evolutionarily very old. Nevertheless, in mammals and, thus, in humans, only a few editing sites have been identified so far. Dr. Meier intends to search for such sites in the nervous system in order to find out what role they play in disorders in which the information transfer in the brain is disturbed.
Dr. Meier was born on October 14, 1970 in Neustadt/Weinstrasse, Germany. From 1990 to 1995, he studied biology at the universities of Mainz, Tübingen, and Heidelberg. After completing his Master of Science (Diplom) degree at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, he went to Paris, France, in 1996 for four years of graduate studies at the École Normale Supérieure.
In 2000, he received his doctorate from the University Pierre et Marie Curie. During this period, he was awarded several scholarships, among others from the Verband der Chemischen Industrie (VCI) and from NATO. From 2000 to 2006, he did research at the Johannes Mueller Center for Physiology, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin.
In addition to his research, he has been active in teaching, both in the regular and in the reformed medical curriculum, as well as in the international master curriculum of molecular neurosciences, which formed the basis for his postdoctoral lecture qualification (Habilitation) in medicine/physiology from Humboldt University.
Press and Public Affairs
Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch
Barbara Bachtler
Robert-Rössle-Str. 10; D-13125 Berlin
Phone: +49/30/9406-38 96
Fax.: +49/30/9406-38 33
e-mail: bachtler@mdc-berlin.de
http://www.mdc-berlin.de/englisch/about_the_mdc/public_relations/e_index.htm
Dr. Jochen Meier
Photo: David Ausserhofer/Copyright: MDC
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