Update 12.10.2026: We are very happy and proud to announce the publication of our newest manuscript, Micronuclear ecDNA constrains tumor cell fitness and is associated with favorable patient survival, in Nature Genetics. This paper was a collaborative effort between the Mischel lab and ours. Lotte Brückner, Robin Xu and Jun Tang (Mischel lab) show that ecDNA frequently localizes to micronuclei, a process accompanied by reduced transcriptional output. Single-micronuclei sequencing shows that oncogenes originating from multiple distinct ecDNAs coalesce in micronuclei. The authors observe that cells inheriting ecDNA-positive micronuclei show an increased likelihood of cell death. In neuroblastoma patients with MYCN-amplified ecDNA, higher frequencies of ecDNA-positive MN at diagnosis are associated with improved event-free and overall survival.

We are a group of physicians, experimental and computational biologists at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) of the MDC and Charité Berlin studying extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA), circular DNA molecules that exist outside the chromosomes and act as vehicles for oncogene amplification. ecDNA amplification occurs frequently across cancer types and is consistently associated with worse prognosis.

Our main model is neuroblastoma, a solid tumor of childhood in which a large subgroup of patients carries an amplification of the MYCN oncogene on ecDNA. Such tumors are classified as high-risk, a group with a mortality rate around 50%, making neuroblastoma both a clinically-important problem and a well-defined system in which to study ecDNA biology. The lab studies the emergence, evolution and maintenance of ecDNA in neuroblastoma and other malignancies. Our long-term goal is to determine specific vulnerabilities that can guide clinical trials of personalized treatments for children with ecDNA-positive cancers.

We are a highly collaborative lab: approximately half of all projects are co-led by two or more students and combine experimental and computational work. Collaborations, joint lab meetings and workshops with partner labs are a regular part of how we work.

We combine experimental and computational approaches: single-cell and bulk sequencing (scRNA-seq, scG&T-seq, Hi-C, nanopore WGS, among others), microscopy and perturbation techniques, cell and mouse model systems, and computational method development including machine learning.

Our PI, Anton Henssen, has received an ERC Starting Grant, an Emmy Noether professorship, and is currently a Mildred Scheel professor. We coordinate a DFG Sonderforschungsbereich on neuroblastoma evolution and a cooperative Jöster Stiftung grant on pediatric tumor evolution and plasticity, and are part of the Cancer Grand Challenges team eDyNAmiC on extrachromosomal DNA.