NCCR TransCure (2010–2022)

​Home institution: University of Berne

Research of the NCCR

The NCCR “TransCure – From Transport Physiology to Identification of Therapeutic Targets” combined the disciplines of physiology, structural biology and chemistry to develop new therapeutic strategies for treating diseases linked to malfunctions of proteins that are involved in transporting molecules in the human body. These diseases include diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, heart diseases and certain types of cancer. By broadening scientific knowledge of how transport proteins work, the NCCR applied a fundamental research approach but kept a disease-oriented perspective.

Scientific impact

The integration of leading researchers from the three disciplines into a single entity has proven particularly successful and led to ground-breaking results in the structural and mechanistic understanding of numerous transport proteins. The NCCR gained attention as an internationally leading consortium that positioned Swiss research as a major actor in membrane transport biology, the subfield of biology concerned with cellular transport proteins. In particular, the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at the University of Bern, the NCCR’s home institution, has gained international visibility for membrane biology in Switzerland.

Legacy

During its lifetime, the NCCR continuously examined the translational potential of its ongoing projects, which ultimately led to the founding of the start-up company Synendos Therapeutics. In addition, the NCCR TransCure contributed to the development of key infrastructure, for instance by creating the Screening, Profiling and Analytical Facility (SPAF), which provides valuable services for preclinical drug development. To continuously support their scientific communities, the two NCCRs TransCure and Kidney.CH joined forces to establish the new “Ion Channels and Membrane Transporters” section of Life Sciences Switzerland (LS2). This initiative is expected to maintain the current TransCure network and provide a basis for new collaborations with research groups outside the NCCR.