Issues neglected in patient-specific management are genetic factors including our evolutionary heritage, determinants in early life, the role of sex/gender and transitory life phases (puberty, menopause), epigenetic modifiers or mental health aspects. We will introduce key patterns of individual pathologies into the design of novel therapies, an aspect currently ignored in large trials. To this end, LeiCeM will become a scientific platform to understand individual molecular pathophysiology and metabolic trajectories defining how “predisposition” is accelerated and perpetuated by modern lifestyle.

Using artificial intelligence, we will integrate trajectories, precision phenotyping and pan-omics scores to develop first score-based readouts to detect, monitor and evaluate therapeutic success with a focus on brain and psychosocial health, adipose tissue and liver health, and cardio-reno-vascular health (“Organ Health Concept”). These novel scores will be used to design and pilot subgroup-specific intervention studies focusing on response likelihood. Both, classical interventions (e.g., drugs, behavior, exercise) and novel therapies (e.g., dietary interventions, microbiome interventions, or tailored cellular therapies) will be tested in clinical trials and cohorts. Our aim is to define subgroup-specific predictors of response (e.g., circulating markers, accessible liquid and solid tissue samples, behavioral traits, imaging patterns). Sex/gender as a highly relevant, but often underappreciated, modifier of response to therapies in metabolic disease will be a major focus.

LeiCeM’s structural concepts include six novel professorships, a teaching strategy with a novel program for MD students, an expansion of our DFG-funded clinician scientist program, a medical scientist program with a focus on high-dimensional data and a school of public health. The LeiCeM Data Center will build on established structures (LIFE, Clinical Trial Center, Early Clinical Trials Unit, ScaDS.AI), cohorts and biobanks as well as the continuous supply of biomaterial and extend the established Leipzig phenotyping units (metabolic, cardiovascular and cerebral phenotyping, biopsy materials, psychometrics). Leipzig brings together clinical and scientific expertise by a multidisciplinary network of internationally renowned researchers that are each at the top of their fields. The resulting breadth and depth of expertise in this group of top researchers clusters sufficient critical mass – by any international comparison – to move the field forward. After decades of searching for solutions for millions of patients suffering from MetS, LeiCeM offers a unique opportunity to redesign metabolic medicine of the future.

Involved Institutions:

• Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
• Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology (IZI)
• Heart Centre Leipzig GmbH
• Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
• Helmholtz Munich – German Research Center for Environmental Health
• Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI EVA)
• Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences