The MMPU drives innovation and its translation into medicine, leveraging its internationality and interdisciplinarity at the interface of molecular research and health care.

Research in the MMPU focuses on common diseases, as well as on rare diseases with a particular medical need. One MMPU hallmark is that it is staffed by both institutions and each research group is headed by two or more cooperating principal investigators. The MMPU is co-directed by Prof. Andreas Kulozik from the Angelika-Lautenschläger Hospital for Children and Adolescents at the Heidelberg University, by Prof. Matthias Hentze and by Dr. Wolfgang Huber from EMBL. 

Currently, the MMPU consists of 8 international teams of molecular research-oriented MDs, PhDs, PhD students and technicians. The research philosophy aims at the molecular understanding of the basis of common human diseases, its applications in diagnosis and therapy, and feedback from ‘bedside medicine’ into the research laboratory. Research themes place emphasis on the diseases of childhood, particularly blood disorders and childhood cancers and on diseases of adolescence, particularly hemochromatosis, heart diseases, chronic pain and cancers.

The MMPU has an international orientation, with regular team meetings, two annual public research days, and an attractive seminar programme.