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Molecular Mechanisms of Resilience

Resilience is the maintenance or quick recovery of mental health during and after periods of adversity. The function of bodily systems – such as the immune system, the cardiovascular system or the gut and metabolism – likely plays an important role in resilience, but strong evidence is missing, and the exact mechanisms are largely unknown.

We have established unique human longitudinal cohort studies, including deep biological phenotyping, and dedicated translational mouse models for resilience that we can now harness to advance the system-biological investigation of resilience. Specifically, the MORE project will employ a data-driven, omics-based approach to identify new molecular pathways involved in resilience in the human data sets. Following replication and critical evaluation, these will then be validated in the mouse for causal effects on the resilient phenotype, as a basis for later in-depth mechanistic dissection and development of new resilience-promoting interventions.

MORE assembles a panel of experts in mental health, psychiatry, neuroscience, immunology, cardiovascular and endothelial biology, metabolism research, bioinformatics, data science, and knowledge management and will generate new knowledge about brain-body interactions in resilience and biologically based prevention.

Principal Investigators

  • Prof. Dr. Raffael Kalisch, University Medical Center Mainz/Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research (contact person, e-mail)
  • Dr. Joan Barau, Institute of Molecular Biology
  • Prof. Dr. Tobias Bopp, University Medical Center Mainz
  • Prof. Dr. Susanne Gerber, University Medical Center Mainz
  • Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kelsch, University Medical Center Mainz
  • Prof. Dr. Klaus Lieb, University Medical Center Mainz/Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research
  • Prof. Dr. Beat Lutz, University Medical Center Mainz/Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research
  • Prof. Dr. Marianne Müller, University Medical Center Mainz/Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research
  • Jun.-Prof. Dr. Christoph Reinhardt, University Medical Center Mainz
  • Prof. Dr. Katrin Schäfer, University Medical Center Mainz
  • Prof. Dr. Susann Schweiger, University Medical Center Mainz/Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research
  • Prof. Dr. Oliver Tüscher, University Medical Center Mainz/Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research
  • Prof. Dr. Ari Waisman, University Medical Center Mainz
  • Prof. Dr. Philipp Wild, University Medical Center Mainz