IDM partners in two new graduate programs

In a highly competitive procedure, 2 Research Training Groups in Tübingen were approved by the DFG for 5 years of funding.

With the International Research Training Group (IRTG) "Mental Health of Women in the Reproductive Phase of Life" (coordinator: Professor Dr. Birgit Derntl, University of Tübingen; cooperation partner: Uppsala Universitet, Sweden), German and Swedish scientists will investigate the relationship between hormonal transition phases and mental health in 12 projects. Prof. Hubert Preissl, head of the research group "Metabolic Neuroimaging" and the fetal magnetoencephalography center, is leading one of the projects, which deals with the impact of emotional processing in pregnant women and its influence on fetal brain and heart activity.

Another funded national RTG is entitled "Non-canonical G protein-dependent signaling pathways: mechanisms, functions, consequences" (spokesperson: Professor Dr. Bernd Nürnberg, University of Tübingen). This RTG focuses on G protein-dependent signaling pathways that are involved in the regulation of numerous biological processes in our body. Widespread diseases such as diabetes mellitus, cancer and stroke, but also rarer diseases such as ciliopathy are associated with these signaling pathways. The aim of the Research Training Group is to close the knowledge gap regarding mechanisms, functions and translational potential of non-canonical signaling pathways in the development of such diseases and to explore new therapeutic strategies based on this knowledge. Prof. Andreas Birkenfeld (Director of IDM and Internal Medicine IV, University of Tübingen) and Timo Müller (Institute of Diabetes and Obesity, Helmholtz Zentrum München; Pharmacology, Experimental Therapy and Toxicology, University of Tübingen) are represented with a project on signaling pathways of the incretin receptor and their impact on metabolism.