Press Officer and Head of Press and Public Relations
Im Neuenheimer Feld 280
69120 Heidelberg
Phone: +49 6221 422854
Fax: +49 6221 422968
E-Mail: s.seltmann@dkfz.de
or presse@dkfz.de
Recent Press Releases
Electronic Cigarettes - An Uncontrolled Experiment with Consumers
Unlike conventional cigarettes, electronic cigarettes do not produce thousands of toxic and carcinogenic substances. Nevertheless, they are not harmless. They contain, as their main ingredient, a substance that irritates the airways, usually along with toxic, addictive nicotine and some carcinogenic substances. In addition, they frequently have various technical flaws. Nevertheless, electronic cigarettes are currently sold unregulated as lifestyle products without any appropriate quality control, turning consumers into involuntary experimental subjects. The German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) has compiled and analyzed available scientific data on product characteristics, potential health risks and prevalence of the products as well as their potential usefulness in smoking cessation in its latest report entitled “Electronic Cigarettes – An Overview”. According to this report, the electronic cigarette is not a safe product.
Hairpin Serving As Gene Control
Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) discovered a previously unknown switch controlling how much of a protein a cell produces. The hairpin-shaped structure lies in the messenger RNA – the copy of a gene serving as a template for protein synthesis. As soon the hairpin is forming, various cellular components bind to and degrade the messenger RNA. This is to prevent producing too much of a harmful protein. The researchers headed by Georg Stoecklin published their results in the journal “Cell”.
Disrupted Lipid Metabolism: Young DKFZ Researcher Honored with Two Awards
Molecular biologist Dr. Maria Rohm pursues research on fat decomposition in the human body. Now she has won two prestigious awards at once for her research: the Novartis Young Endocrinologist Award, worth €10,000, of the German Society of Endocrinology (DGE), and the €7,500 sponsorship award of the German Diabetes Association (DDG), donated by Sanofi-Aventis Germany. Maria Rohm works as a scientist at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), where she is studying the molecular foundations of a disrupted lipid metabolism.
