Research Areas

We are living longer than ever — but not necessarily better. Over the past century, global life expectancy has nearly doubled, yet the years gained are too often marked by chronic disease, frailty, and dependency rather than vitality. Moreover, Germany is among the countries with the highest healthcare-related costs – that does not translate in a healthier society. This gap between lifespan — the number of years lived — and healthspan — the number of years lived in good health — and quality of life is one of the defining challenges of modern medicine. The Center for Smart Drug Design exists to close that gap.

Aging itself is an immanent process of life that starts with birth: every breath brings the biradical oxygen molecule into our bodies, generating reactive oxygen species and cumulative cell damage. Every breath also exposes the organism to a magnitude of volatiles, such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), mainly from natural as well as from industrial sources, impacting brain and systemic biological processes in beneficial but also detrimental ways. The influence of the volatile exposome together with other environmental and lifestyle factors, such as dietary and physical activity habits, smoking status, and sleep quality is only partially understood. What we know so far is that most of the initiated biological processes cannot be reversed. Thus, prevention is key to eliminate the resulting diseases — such as cardiometabolic diseases, cancer, and infections, since those illnesses can shorten the healthspan in later life. For effective prevention, disease precursors need to be identified and tracked as early as possible to tailor preventive measures in a targeted individual manner. This is the center's mission: to provide targeted, personalized prevention, detection and treatment strategies to increase the healthspan and quality of life across the lifespan.

Deaths caused by cardiometabolic diseases accounts for ~22 million, cancer for ~10 million and infectious disease for ~8 million. A substantial share of these fatalities could be avoided through early detection and preventive measures, before disease progresses beyond the point of effective treatment. Research across our three pillars — prevention, detection, and treatment — is therefore the center's core strategy for extending health at all levels across the lifespan. 

Tailor preventive approaches and compounds to individual physiological needs

Pillar 1 — Prevention. A lot of diseases, such as cardiovascular conditions, can be avoided, when preventative measures are taken early. Under the umbrella of the CSDD experts in nutrition, sports medicine and start-ups develop personalized novel preventive approaches tailored to individual physiological needs. Healthy nutrition and vitamin levels are fundamental for a strong immune response and prevention of age-associated diseases. To detect vitamin deficiencies more easily, the TUM start up Keynostic is developing home devices which directly monitor the vitamin status. Another starting point for diseases is the gut and the associated microbiome. Since the composition of the microbiome is a key driver of many diseases, monitoring and controlling the microbiome are key strategies to prevent diseases (Haller, Schirmer). A core innovation of the center is the systematic development of designer volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as preventive agents : non-invasive, rapidly bioavailable, independent of gastrointestinal absorption and hepatic first-pass metabolism, and compatible with tailored exposure at home, at work or in the clinic (Timper).

Involved PIs:

Dirk Haller (Nutrition, microbiome & immunology), Katharina Timper (Clinical nutritional medicine), Melanie Schirmer (Microbiome & data science)

Track health changes and disease precursors

Pillar 2 — Detection. Even if all preventative measures are taken by the patient, diseases can still occur because of environmental or genetic causes. Our objective is to develop platforms, that make disease detection fast, convenient and reliable. Researchers and spin-offs are developing non-invasive biomarker detection tools using AI-integrated analysis platforms accessible for both users and health care providers. Vasilis Ntziachristos pioneered optoacoustic imaging, which combines light excitation with ultrasound detection to visualize micro-circulation, tissue oxygenation, and metabolic activity non-invasively and label-free. Due to its practical size and easy application, continuous, at-home monitoring of disease progression is possible. An additional focus is the personalized detection of cancer via nuclear imaging (Weber, Kossatz, Casini). These approaches feed patient data into biomarker discovery, therapy-response monitoring, and early-detection pipelines that complement the center’s work in disease prevention and treatment. Moreover, continuous monitoring in combination with AI-integrated data analysis enables rapid detection in health changes and disease precursors for preventive interventions. For example, Exosphere uses disease specific extracellular vesicles in blood as tool for radiation-free diagnosis and fast treatment decisions. The start-ups 2nafish and BugSense provide the knowledge and technology for rapid disease detection of i.e. urinary tract infections. Another innovative approach for health monitoring is analyzing the breath. Exhaled breath carries several hundred endogenous and microbially derived VOCs that mirror systemic metabolism, oxidative stress and host–pathogen interaction in real time. These present multiple opportunities for disease detection (Timper). Overall, monitoring the onset of disease and its progression during treatment enables preventive as well as adaptive therapies, which are fundamental to personalized medicine. 

Involved PIs:

Susanne Kossatz (In vivo imaging and biomarkers), Vasilis Ntziachristos (Medical Imaging and bioengineering), Wolfgang Weber (Theranostics & biomarkers), Ivy Curren (Biological and medical imaging)

Pillar 3 — Treatment. Even with optimal prevention and detection, aging-related diseases cannot be completely avoided, making innovative treatment the center's third pillar. Recent breakthroughs in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying cardiometabolic diseases, cancer, and infectious diseases mark only the beginning of a new era — one increasingly driven by gene-editing technologies, AI, automation, and robotics. These technologies promise a transformative impact on diseases that remain incurable with existing therapies. Innovation is driven at the CSDD in areas of designer molecules, designer biologics and designer cells addressing cardiometabolic diseases cancer and infection.