DZNE/Frommann
19. June 2024
The Fight Against Alzheimer's

New video­por­trait of Chris­t­ian Haass

The Hector Fellow Academy has released a new video portrait intro­duc­ing the renowned biochemist, Alzheimer's researcher and Hector Fellow Chris­t­ian Haass. Haass is known for his ground­break­ing work on the cell biology of neurode­gen­er­a­tive diseases. He and his team are inves­ti­gat­ing the molec­u­lar and cellu­lar mecha­nisms of Alzheimer's disease in order to better under­stand the processes in the brain at the small­est level. Haass is Profes­sor of Metabolic Biochem­istry at the Ludwig Maxim­il­ian Univer­sity of Munich and spokesper­son for the German Center for Neurode­gen­er­a­tive Diseases in Munich.

Alzheimer's disease repre­sents an immense global challenge, as the risk of demen­tia increases with age and a new case of demen­tia is currently diagnosed every 3 seconds. Haass explains in the inter­view: "What is going wrong in the brain? Why do nerve cells die? That's what I wanted to find out. And what inter­ested me enormously right from the start: Why is the risk of devel­op­ing Alzheimer's so high for all of us (...)? There must be a molec­u­lar basis for this."

Chris­t­ian Haass empha­sizes the impor­tance of creativ­ity and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary collab­o­ra­tion for scien­tific success. He has received numer­ous awards and is currently working on a project with a US biotech company that involves clini­cal trials of an antibody for Alzheimer's treatment.

Chris­t­ian Haass' team also includes young scien­tist Matteo Rovere, who is research­ing a genetic variant of Alzheimer's disease. Rovere's doctoral position is funded by the Hector Fellow Academy.

The Hector Fellow Academy regularly publishes video portraits of the scien­tists in its network. These videos offer gener­ally under­stand­able insights into the diverse research projects of the Hector Fellows and young scien­tists and enable viewers to get to know the Hector Fellow Academy better.