Faculty of Medicine

Research

The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bern offers the best conditions for high-quality and future-oriented research. Close links between basic research, engineering sciences, and the university hospitals provide a unique environment for translational and patient-centered clinical research. Our strategic focus is on cross-disciplinary research priorities.

The excellence of our research is reflected, among other things, in our success in acquiring competitively awarded external funding. Internal funding instruments are specifically designed to complement the external instruments and offer attractive opportunities for early-career researchers in particular.

2024 SNSF Starting Grant for Mattia Aime

Mattia Aime received a Starting Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation for his research project "Cracking the neural code shaping emotional memories during sleep (REMind)", which focuses on emotional memory processing during sleep. Mattia Aime will establish his own research group at the Institute of Physiology at the University of Bern.
During daily life, a myriad of events occur and are stored in our brains. Emotions play a crucial role, acting as markers to prioritize salient information for memory storage. This process relies on changes in brain connectivity, a phenomenon called neural plasticity. However, memory storage extends beyond wakefulness, necessitating an offline period, which is provided by sleep. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, a phase characterized by heightened activity of emotion-related brain regions, assumes a pivotal role in storing emotional information, although recent research also highlights the involvement of non-REM (NREM) sleep in this process. Yet, the precise neural plasticity mechanisms underpinning memory processing during REM and NREM sleep have remained elusive.
The Aime Lab will delve into the neural dynamics of emotion-related regions, uncovering the plasticity mechanisms that govern emotional memory processing during NREM and REM sleep. New perspectives on the relationship between sleep, memory, and neural plasticity will potentially lead to unlocking crucial therapeutic targets for sleep and affective disorders.

Dr. Mattia Aime, Center for Experimental Neurology, Department for BioMedical Research

A new way of treating irreversible vision loss

Federica Maria Conedera received an Ambizione Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) for her project “Targeting the T-cell response as a novel therapeutic strategy for retinal degeneration.”
She investigates the role of T cells in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and aims to develop potential new therapies. AMD causes irreversible vision loss that is linked to immune activity.

Federica Maria Conedera, Department for BioMedical Research

A better understanding of schizophrenia

Mélodie Derome received an Ambizione Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) for her project “Hearing threat: Multimodal investigation of auditory verbal hallucinations with emotional content in patients with schizophrenia, a new target for transcranial magnetic stimulation?”
The project aims to understand the pathophysiology of negative auditory verbal hallucinations in schizophrenia, determine their impact on quality of life, and explore targeted treatments using transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Mélodie Derome, University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, UPD

How droughts affect human health

Coral Salvador received an Ambizione Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) for her project “IGIA-SETH: unravelInG the ImpActs of droughtS on human hEalTH.”
The interdisciplinary project aims to advance knowledge of the global impact of droughts on human health, using a holistic approach and robust methods to uncover mechanisms and vulnerabilities.

Coral Salvador, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM)

Better Cardiac Transplantations

Rahel Ottersberg received an MD-PhD grant from the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS) for her project “Ex-vivo heart perfusion enables innovations in cardiac transplantation and precision therapies”.
Her research forms part of a collaborative, translational research effort to explore and extend the boundaries of ex-vivo heart perfusion (EVHP). EVHP technology maintains the heart in a beating state outside the body and is expected to have significant benefits in heart transplantation, such as better cardiac graft assessment and limiting ischemic graft damage, as well as to enable new precision therapies.
Rahel Ottersberg will focus on three key aspects: i) investigating new biomarkers of cardiac graft quality enabled by EVHP; ii) optimizing existing EVHP protocols to extend out-of-body times, and iii) exploring the application of gene therapy during EVHP using a rabbit model. The combination of extending EHVP durations with new cardiac biomarkers and cardiac precision therapies holds great promise towards realizing the full potential of EVHP.

Rahel Ottersberg, Department for BioMedical Research and Department of Cardiac Surgery

New Therapeutic Approaches for Leukemia

Luca Palombella received an MD-PhD grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) for his project “The Role of TRAF2 and NCK-interacting Kinase in the Regulation of Acute Myeloid Leukemia”.
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common form of leukemia in adults and is initiated by leukemia stem cells (LSCs). LSCs are the main cause of relapse due to their resistance to chemotherapy and represent a critical target for new therapeutic approaches. TRAF2 and NCK-interacting kinase (TNIK) is a key molecule in several oncogenic signaling pathways. In AML patients, high TNIK expression correlates with poor survival and is involved in LSCs maintenance.
Luca Palombella aims to elucidate the mechanisms of how TNIK regulates hematopoiesis and AML development. By using genetically engineered mouse models and primary leukemia samples from AML patients, he will investigate the role of TNIK in hematopoietic stem cells, natural killer cells, and LSCs function. By large-scale screening of already existing drugs, he will try to identify TNIK-inhibiting molecules that could selectively target LSCs.

Luca Palombella, Department of Medical Oncology, Department for BioMedical Research, and Graduate School for Cellular and Biomedical Sciences

Pathophysiology of Alzheimer's Disease

Felix Pompizii received an MD-PhD grant from the Dementia Research Switzerland – Synapsis Foundation for his project “Restoring cortical brain dynamics during sleep to rescue cognition in Alzheimer’s disease”.
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by cognitive malfunction due to impaired processing and retrieving of information, downscaled memory consolidation, and perturbated sleep-wake cycles. Cortical circuits in the prefrontal and the hippocampal cortex represent key structures for understanding and modeling the pathophysiological mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease. By unraveling the complex relationship between AD and sleep-related dysfunctions in prefrontal and hippocampal microcircuits, new therapeutic approaches to treat AD patients could be identified.
Felix Pompizii’s research aims (1) to identify alterations of pyramidal and interneuron cell dynamics across sleep-wake states in prefrontal and hippocampal microcircuits and (2) to restore proper excitation/inhibition balance and rescue cognitive impairment in AD mouse models. The project will provide a detailed overview and mapping of changes in the distribution, morphology, and activity of pyramidal neurons and interneurons in AD mouse models across sleep-wake states and highlight possible cognitive improvements during wakefulness after normalizing pyramidal neuron and interneuron activity during sleep.

Felix Pompizii, Department of Neurology