Groundbreaking ceremony for new ICON research institute

Construction work for the "Interfaculty Center for Endocrine and Cardiovascular Disease Network Modelling and Clinical Transfer" (ICON) on the LMU campus Großhadern/Martinsried is getting underway. The groundbreaking ceremony was held today by LMU President Prof. Dr. Bernd Huber, the Medical Director of the LMU Hospital Prof. Dr. Markus M. Lerch, Prof. Dr. Steffen Massberg, Head of the Medical Clinic and Policlinic I, Prof. Dr. Eckhard Wolf from the LMU Gene Center as well as Science Minister Bernd Sibler and Construction Minister Kerstin Schreyer. The new center is dedicated to important research on metabolic diseases and diseases of the cardiovascular system, which, according to the World Health Organization, are the most common cause of death worldwide. Completion of the building is scheduled for the end of 2024.
In recent decades, modern basic research has gathered numerous insights into the causes and mechanisms of disease and developed possible therapeutic approaches. But in order to actually bring innovative concepts to clinical trials and later to the clinic, such concepts must first also be validated in suitable large animal models. This is precisely where the new ICON research institute comes in to make translation more effective. Physicians and veterinarians at LMU can draw on a wealth of experience not only in basic biomedical research, but also particularly in the field of research on large animal models. In the new ICON center, they want to focus this expertise on new diagnostic and therapeutic methods for endocrine-metabolic and cardiovascular diseases and validate such approaches preclinically in customized, especially genetically modified pig models developed at CiMM.