CeMM had the pleasure to host the Federal President of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, and the Mayor of the City of Vienna, Michael Häupl on October 3, 2017. The guests came to our institute on the occasion of CeMM´s 10th anniversary, which we celebrated in September, and to inaugurate our PhD Gallery.

Welcomed by CeMM Directors Giulio Superti-Furga and Anita Ender and cheered by the entire staff of CeMM, the guests were accompanied to the CeMM Time Capsule, the first stop of their visit. After receiving one of the notebooks with the invitation to write down their thoughts and ideas, President Van der Bellen and Mayor Häupl met PhD representatives to unveil and inaugurate our newly installed Gallery that shows pictures and project titles of all students who completed their PhD at CeMM in the past years.

Afterwards the guests moved to the CeMM Brain Lounge, where Giulio Superti-Furga held a short presentation on the highlights of the past decade and gave an outlook into the future, stating CeMM´s most important next goals: To accelerate the development and to accompany a considerate implementation of genome-based medicine, to explore and design precise drugs and find new ways to apply existing substances with higher precision, and in close collaboration with the Medical University of Vienna, to work on strategic programs to further improve healthcare.

The ambition of CeMM to create an impact on the medicine of the future and to pursue basic research that is focused on the needs of the patients, but also the enthusiasm and persistence of all CeMM members - the “CeMM spirit” - seemed to have made an impression on our guests of honor. 

We are proud and most thankful to President Alexander Van der Bellen and Mayor Michael Häupl for their visit and their constant support over many years, and we feel more encouraged and motivated than ever to perform the best medical research, and to continue our dialogue with society.