Press Releases

July 2026 – The Hector Foundation II will fund the Hector Institute for Translational Brain Research, home of our lab, for another ten years from 2028 with over €46 million, to bring discoveries on brain disorders and brain tumors into the clinic. Link to DKFZ Press Release. 

June 2026 – Laura Rueda Gensini and Nathan Trausch, doctoral researchers in our lab, were two of four Heidelberg University doctoral candidates selected for the 75th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. Heidelberg University Press Release. 

June 2026 – Moritz Mall receives an ERC Proof of Concept Grant to develop a gene therapy that makes glioblastoma cells vulnerable to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Link to DKFZ Press Release. 

May 2026 – Moritz Mall receives the Sibylle Assmus Prize for Neuro-Oncology for research on genetic “guardians” that could restrict the plasticity of aggressive brain tumors. Link to DKFZ Press Release. 

August 2025 – Our PROX1 study in Nature Genetics receives the German Stem Cell Network’s Publication of the Year Award 2025. Link to GSCN Press Release. 

May 2025 – Moritz Mall shares Heidelberg University’s Hella Bühler Prize, one of Germany’s most highly endowed cancer research prizes, for his work on cellular plasticity in tumors and the “guardian” factors that keep it in check. Press release. 

February 2025 – We discovered that the guardian molecule PROX1 keeps liver cells on track and can block liver cancer in mice, even against strong cancer drivers. Link to DKFZ Press Release. 

February 2023 – Loss of the neuronal guardian MYT1L causes autism-associated changes in human neurons and mice, and an approved epilepsy drug reversed key defects in mice. Link to DKFZ Press Release. 

March 2020 – Why does a neuron not turn into a muscle cell? We showed that powerful “pioneer” factors also bind the wrong genes – and why guardian factors are needed to keep them in check. Link to DKFZ Press Release. 

July 2018 – Our lab was one of the three founding research groups that started at the newly opened Hector Institute for Translational Brain Research, a joint institute of DKFZ, the Central Institute of Mental Health (ZI) and the Hector Foundation II. Link to DKFZ Press Release. 

August 2018 – Moritz Mall receives an ERC Starting Grant to study how cells maintain their identity during development and disease. Link to DKFZ Press Release. 

April 2015 – Stanford Medicine reported on our discovery of the first “many-but-one” repressor: MYT1L blocks skin, heart, lung, cartilage and liver programs to keep neurons neurons. Link to Standford Medicine News.