Braun Lab

Research topics
Targeted therapy for childhood cancers
Genome-wide genetic screens
Role of RNA life cycle in cancer biology
Personalized therapy of pediatric tumors

Dr. med. Christian J. Braun
✉ chr.braun@med.lmu.de
☎ +49-89-4400-54724
Our mission - precision oncology for children with cancer

Every child is unique – and so is every cancer! This means that a treatment that successfully works for one little patient may not be effective for another. It is our mission to better understand the complicated molecular processes specific to each individual tumor – and to exploit this knowledge for the development of molecularly targeted and fully personalized treatment approaches.

Synthetic sickness - and why we believe "super cancers" don't exist

Synthetic lethality is a concept in molecular oncology that exploits the vulnerabilities of cancer cells while sparing normal cells. It's as easy as that!
We are driven by the idea that while cancer cells are "fitter" than most other cells of the human body, the complicated rewiring of biochemical processes that drives proliferation, therapeutic resistance or metastasis also renders them "addicted" to druggable processes. This concept is not new and has been exploited by doctors since the 1940s: Chemotherapy harms quickly dividing tumor cells more than many other body cells.
It is our mission to bring this to a new level and define molecular cancer vulnerabilities. Instead of administering highly toxic chemotherapeutics, we develop therapeutic approaches that interfere precisely with a molecular signaling pathways a specific tumor is addicted to.
We prefer the term "synthetic sickness" - because we do not neccesarily require that a new molecular approach must kill tumor cells. Reducing their "fitness" is oftentimes enough. But that's just the fineprint.

Harnessing the power of CRISPR genome editing

We employ cutting edge CRISPR technologies to decipher and therapeutically exploit molecular addictions of cancer cells. CRISPR genome editing was a real game changer for our work and enabled us to systematically probe whether a specific tumor cell is addicted to the function of a certain gene. We used to do this gene by gene – which is long, costly and slow. To speed up our discovery process, we now employ CRISPR screens to do this in parallel for thousands of genes and within a couple of days. These experiment cannot only be performed in plastic dishes, but also in organoid models or even in living tissues.

Drugging aberrant transcription and RNA metabolism

We have a special interest drugging transcription and RNA metabolism. Such processes are frequently aberrant in cancer, oftentimes druggable with small molecules and right at the heart of cancer biology! Our favorite molecular target is PRMT5 – an enzyme that regulates a specific splicing program centered around intron biology. PRMT5 was the top hit of one of our screens (Cancer Cell, 2017), several clinical trials have since been launched for cancer patients.
Dr. med. Christian Braun
Group Leader
✉ chr.braun@med.lmu.de
☎ 089-4400-54724
Room: K0.05

Andres Carbonell Adames, M. Sc.
Doctoral Researcher (PhD track)
M.Sc. LMU Munich, B. Sc. Penn State, U.S..A
✉ Andres.Carbonell@med.uni-muenchen.de
☎ 089-4400-54724
Room: K0.31

Annika Danker, Cand. med.
Doctoral Researcher (MD track)
✉ Annika.Danker@med.uni-muenchen.de
☎ 089-4400-54724
Room: K0.31

Daniel Schäfer, Cand. med.
Doctoral Researcher (MD track)
Jointly supervised with Kimberly Stegmaier
at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute / Harvard Medical School

Moritz Schanzer, Cand. med.
Doctoral Researcher (MD track)
✉ moritz.schanzer@med.uni-muenchen.de
☎ 089-4400-54724
Room: K0.31

Heidi Noll-Puchta, VTA
Technician & Lab Manager
✉ Heidi.Noll-Puchta@med.uni-muenchen.de
☎ 089-4400-54724
Room: K0.31

Mark Rassner,
Dr. med. Dipl.-Mol.med.
Clinician Scientist
✉ Mark.Rassner@med.uni-muenchen.de
☎ 089-4400-54724
Room: K0.31

Liana Gahleitner, Cand. med.
Doctoral Researcher (MD track)
✉ Liana.Gahleitner@med.uni-muenchen.de
☎ 089-4400-54724
Room: K0.31

Dorothea Mock, Cand. med.
Doctoral Researcher (MD track)
✉ dorothea.mock@med.uni-muenchen.de
☎ 089-4400-54724
Room: K0.31

Mayra Lenz, Cand. med.
Doctoral Researcher (MD track)
✉ mayra.lenz@med.uni-muenchen.de
☎ 089-4400-54724
Room: K0.31

Alumni

John Ku, B. Sc.
Master Thesis Student
B. Sc. California State Polytechnic University, USA
✉ John.Ku@med.uni-muenchen.de

Satyendra Kumar, PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher
PhD Karolinska Institute, Sweden
✉ satyendra.kumar@med.uni-muenchen.de
Selected Publications

C. J. Braun*, A. C. Adames, D. Saur & R. Rad*. Tutorial: design and execution of CRISPR in vivo screens. *Co-corresponding
Nature protocols (2022)
Journal Impact Factor₂₀₂₁: 17.021

>> Selected "Paper of the month" by LMU's medical faculty Link

DOI

T. Kaltenbacher, J. Loprich, R. Maresch, J. Weber, S. Muller, R. Oellinger, N. Gross, J. Griger, N. de Andrade Kratzig, P. Avramopoulos, D. Ramanujam, S. Brummer, S. A. Widholz, S. Barthel, C. Falcomata, A. Pfaus, A. Alnatsha, J. Mayerle, M. Schmidt-Supprian, M. Reichert, G. Schneider, U. Ehmer, C. J. Braun, D. Saur, S. Engelhardt, and R. Rad. CRISPR somatic genome engineering and cancer modeling in the mouse pancreas and liver.
Nature protocols (2022)
Journal Impact Factor₂₀₂₁: 17.021

DOI

J. Weber, C. J. Braun, D. Saur, R. Rad. In vivo functional screening for systems-level integrative cancer genomics. In vivo functional screening for systems-level integrative cancer genomics.
Nature Reviews Cancer (2020)
Journal Impact Factor₂₀₂₁: 69.800

DOI

M. Becker, H. Noll-Puchta, D. Amend, F. Nolte, C. Fuchs, I. Jeremias*, C. J. Braun*. CLUE: a bioinformatic and wet-lab pipeline for multiplexed cloning of custom sgRNA libraries.
Nucleic Acids Research (2020)
Journal Impact Factor₂₀₂₁: 19.160

DOI

C. J. Braun*, M. Stanciu*, P. L. Boutz*, J. C. Patterson, D. Calligaris, F. Higuchi, R. Neupane, S. Fenoglio, D. P. Cahill, H. Wakimoto, N. Y. R. Agar, M. B. Yaffe, P. A. Sharp, M. T. Hemann, J. A. Lees. Coordinated Splicing of Regulatory Detained Introns within Oncogenic Transcripts Creates an Exploitable Vulnerability in Malignant Glioma. *equal contributions
Cancer Cell (2017)
Journal Impact Factor₂₀₂₁: 38.585

DOI

C. J. Braun*, P. M. Bruno*, M. A. Horlbeck, L. A. Gilbert, J. S. Weissman, M. T. Hemann. Versatile in vivo regulation of tumor phenotypes by dCas9 mediated transcriptional perturbation. *equal contributions
PNAS (2016)
Journal Impact Factor₂₀₂₁: 10.700

DOI

I. G. Cannell, K. A. Merrick*, S. Morandell*, C. Z. Zhu, C. J. Braun, R. A. Grant, E. R. Cameron, M. Tsao, M.T. Hemann and M. B. Yaffe. A Pleiotropic RNA-Binding Protein Controls Distinct Cell Cycle Checkpoints to Drive Resistance of p53-defective Tumors to Chemotherapy.
Cancer Cell (2015)
Journal Impact Factor₂₀₂₁: 38.585

DOI

C. J. Braun*, K. Boztug*, A. Paruzynski*, M. Witzel*, A. Schwarzer, M. Rothe, U. Modlich, R. Beier, G. Göhring, D. Steinemann, R. Fronza, C. R. Ball, R. Haemmerle, S. Naundorf, K. Kühlcke, M. Rose, C. Fraser, L. Mathias, R. Ferrari, M. R. Abboud, W. Al-Herz, I. Kondratenko, L. Maródi, H. Glimm, B. Schlegelberger, A. Schambach, M. H. Albert, M. Schmidt, C. von Kalle, and C. Klein. Gene Therapy for Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome--long-term efficacy and genotoxicity. *equal contributions
Science translational medicine (2014)
Journal Impact Factor₂₀₂₁: 19.359

DOI

C. P. Pallasch, I. Leskov, C. J. Braun, D. Vorholt, A. Drake, Y. M. Soto-Feliciano, E. H. Bent, J. Schwamb, B. Iliopoulou, N. Kutsch, N. van Rooijen, L. P. Frenzel, C. M. Wendtner, L. Heukamp, K. A. Kreuzer, M. Hallek, J. Chen, and M. T. Hemann. Sensitizing Protective Tumor Microenvironments to Antibody-Mediated Therapy.
Cell (2014)
Journal Impact Factor₂₀₂₁: 66.850

DOI

All publications Braun Lab
CLUE: Multiplexed sgRNA library design and production

Pooled sgRNA libraries targeting hundreds or thousands of individual genes are right at the heart of functional genomics. Such libraries are broadly available, but usually not tailored to the scientific interest of researchers. With our tool CRISPR clue were were out to bring custom sgRNA library production to all labs - streamlining the cloning process, lowering synthesis costs and reducing bioinformatics to the bare minimum. Check out www.crispr-clue.de and the manuscript at Nucleic Acids Research (NAR)!

Andres' podcasts

Andres is very passionate about making science & molecular biology accessible to the general public. Check out his podcasts!

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Join us!

We are highly enthusiastic about science - but also love to teach, discuss, collaborate and hang out.
If you are interested in CRISPR screens, functional genomics, genetic crosstalk, context dependence, translation into clinic and the discovery of new treatment opportunities for childhood cancers: please don't hesitate to send an email to Christian (chr.braun@med.lmu.de) or any of the current lab members.
Christian Braun Lab

Kinderklinik und Kinderpoliklinik im Dr. von Haunerschen Kinderspital,
Klinikum der Universität München, LMU München

Postal Address: Lindwurmstr. 4
Visiting Address: Research Building, Lindwurmstraße 2a
80337 Munich
Germany

Room: K 0.5
Phone: +49 (0)89 - 4400 - 54724
Fax: +49 (0)89 - 4400 - 57702
Email: chr.braun@med.lmu.de

Lab Manager: Heidi Noll-Puchta
Postal Address: Lindwurmstr. 4
Visiting Address: Research Building, Lindwurmstraße 2a
80337 Munich
Germany

Room: K 0.31
Phone: +49 (0)89 - 4400 - 54724
Fax: +49 (0)89 - 4400 - 57702
Email: Heidi.Noll-Puchta@med.uni-muenchen.de