Interview with Noa Lipstein
04.11.2025
Following a competitive review, the German Research Foundation (DFG) recently announced that the Cluster of Excellence NeuroCure will be extended for another term, receiving funding from 2026 to 2032. The Cluster focuses on studying neurological and psychiatric disorders through interdisciplinary collaboration between basic and clinical researchers.
Noa Lipstein and Volker Haucke from the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP) are among the 25 principal investigators involved in the cluster. The FMP sat down with Noa Lipstein to talk about her research within the cluster.
Noa Lipstein, junior group leader at Leibniz-FMP and principal inverstigator in the NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence. © Kauffmannstudios
It was decided that funding for NeuroCure will be extended: Why do you think this is so important?
Noa Lipstein: NeuroCure laid the groundwork for the neuroscience community we have in Berlin today. When it started, a little under 20 years ago, there were only a handful of groups here focusing on neuroscience. The Cluster of Excellence made it possible to build a strong community and attract many new research groups to Berlin – mine included. Now, having NeuroCure continue for another seven years is a fantastic chance to keep growing this community, adapt it to the future of neuroscience, and maintain a strong clinical and fundamental neuroscience research program in Berlin.
What does it mean personally to you to be a part of this cluster?
Noa Lipstein: It’s a real honor and an exciting opportunity for me to keep working in such an outstanding environment. I first joined NeuroCure five years ago as a junior group leader, and being selected now as a PI reflects the strong, ongoing support I receive within this community. It also opens up many possibilities – both for new collaborations and for exploring different research directions.
From your perspective: What makes NeuroCure so special?
Noa Lipstein: What makes NeuroCure really special is that it’s not just about basic neuroscience. It’s about connecting the clinical scientists with the scientists working at the bench. So under one roof you find researchers studying flies, and clinicians dealing with the human brain. Building that bridge between fundamental research and clinical application is incredibly challenging, but NeuroCure is actively working to make it happen.
What would you like to focus on in your research over the next few years?
Noa Lipstein: I came to Berlin to study how nerve cells communicate at the molecular level. Specifically, we want to understand how the molecular composition of synapses shape their function. Over the past few years, we’ve made progress in establishing tools to address this topic and identified several underlying mechanisms, and we’re continuing to push this line of research forward. At the same time, we’ve expanded into studying human disease – we’re running active projects on the underlying mechanisms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), as well as on a neurodevelopmental disorder we identified. In these projects, we’re investigating disease mechanisms as well as exploring new therapeutic approaches. Thanks to NeuroCure, we now have the exciting opportunity to access human brain tissue from resection surgeries. This gives us a unique way to connect our basic research with our disease-focused studies, and we’re really looking forward to integrating this as a powerful new tool in the lab in the years ahead.
What recent discoveries within the project have you found most exciting?
Noa Lipstein: We identified multiple protein networks with signaling functions at specific synaptic sub-compartments, and in distinct synapse subtypes. We can now show that these proteins dynamically shape synaptic function, contributing to the heterogeneity and diversity of neuronal communication. Understanding this interplay is especially exciting for us, and it also relates to human disease, because we were already able to find patients that have mutations in the genes encoding for some of those signaling molecules.
Since interdisciplinary collaboration plays a huge role in NeuroCure’s success, can you share an example where teamwork will make a significant difference?
Noa Lipstein: We study a neurodevelopmental brain disorder in children who carry genetic variations in the UNC13A gene, which encodes the essential synaptic protein UNC13A. At one of NeuroCure’s annual meetings, I had the chance to speak with Dr. Andrea Kühn, an expert on motor disorders. She and her team helped us assess the clinical condition of children affected by the UNC13A disorder, and this collaboration has already been very productive and successful. Looking ahead, we plan to work with the Neuroscience Clinical Research Center (NCRC) to bring patients with this neurodevelopmental disorder to Berlin for evaluation. This will give us deeper insights into their condition and possibly open up exciting new avenues for lab-based research.
What do you see as the biggest challenges and future opportunities in NeuroCure?
Noa Lipstein: For me, it’s definitely about translating discoveries from the lab into clinical applications or into improved patient care. Over the next seven years, I hope we can bring many new ideas into this pipeline.
Source: News FMP