With the implementation of the third C4 professorship at the Institute, the Tropical Medicine Section was founded to foster disease-oriented research. It combines the pre-existing Departments of Pathology and Clinical Chemistry with two newly established units, namely the Department of Molecular Medicine and the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine in Kumasi, Ghana. The activities of the Provisional Research Unit, Macenta, Guinea, were terminated. They are described by the Unit’s Head separately.
The Department of Pathology continued its successful and internationally reputed work on the role of productively and latently infected cells in HIV infection. An additional study addresses the contribution of antibodies to the enhancement and neutralization of lentivirus pathogenicity. One of the outstanding characteristics of the Department is its intimate engagement in a highly productive network of international scientific cooperation, which is documented in an impressive list of collaborating partners. Of critical regional and national importance are the diagnostic skills of the Department, which make it a reference centre for the histopathology of tropical as well as other infectious and exotic diseases.
Research activities of the Department of Clinical Chemistry like before concentrated on clinical immunology in the framework of the Institute Programme on Molecular and Cellular Interactions between Parasite and Host in Onchocerciasis. The projects are summarized separately in this issue by the Programme Coordinator. To the greater part, the Department of Clinical Chemistry used to be devoted to diagnostic services for the Hafenkrankenhaus and the Institute’s Department of Clinical Medicine. The closing of the Hafenkrankenhaus in February 1997 drastically reduced the workload in diagnostics, and, subsequently, nearly all of routine clinical chemistry had to be abandoned for economic reasons.
The Department of Molecular Medicine arose from the Department of Molecular Genetics when it moved from the Molecular Biology to the Tropical Medicine Section early during the year. The move did not affect the research projects, which continued to address the genetic basis of human and, to a lesser extent, animal disease. Still the main objective is to identify genes conferring resistance to major tropical diseases. Human schistosomiasis and bovine trypanosomiasis are under intense study. A side project on genetic factors influencing the development of Parkinson´s disease had been started three years ago, when suitable samples from classical tropical diseases were not available; it now yielded evidence for an interesting disease locus on chromosome 2. Likewise, a small project disclosed the molecular basis for an inherited form of severe hearing impairment occurring with an extraordinarily high prevalence in a village in Ghana. This project provided a fortunate start for collaborative research with scientists from Kumasi.
Certainly the hallmark of the year was the founding of the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine, a joint venture of the Bernhard Nocht Institute and the School of Medical Sciences of the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. The Centre is described in greater detail in a separate chapter and commented upon in the Director’s Report.

Staff Prof. Dr. Rolf D. Horstmann,     Chairman and Head, Department of Molecular Medicine Prof. Dr. Paul Racz     Head, Department of Pathology and     Körber Laboratory for AIDS Research Privatdozent Dr. Frank W. Tischendorf      Head, Department of Clinical Chemistry Dr. Christoph Hamelmann     Head, Kumasi Centre for Collaborative     Research in Tropical Medicine, KCCR Dr. Thomas F. Kruppa     Head, Provisional Research Unit,Macenta, Guinea Dr. Zézé Albert Dr. Norbert Brattig Dr. Wilhelm Büngener Privatdozent Dr. Gerd D. Burchard Dr. Ernst Diekmann Dr. Annette Gelhaus Christiane Hagen Dr. Gertrud Helling-Giese Privatdozent Dr. B. Müller-Myhsok Dr. Klara Tenner-Racz Visiting Scientists, Department of Pathology and Körber-Laboratory for AIDS-Research Prof. Dr. Michel Huerre, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France Prof. Dr. R. M. Steinman, Rockefeller University, New York , USA Prof. Dr. A.T. Haase, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA Dr. M. Schutten, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Prof. Dr. Norman Letvin, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, USA Prof. Dr. J.C. Gluckman, Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France Prof. Dr. George Janossy, Royal Free Hospital, London, Great Britain Doctoral Students Kirsten Arndt Anke Haffner Markus Heß Eva Kahn Ines Karsten Liliana Moncada-Gutierrez Ulf Rathjens Anette Rink Felicitas van Vloten Graduate Students Tanja Kubica Carola Nietz Andreas Pieper Susanne Schröder Support Staff Birgit Förster Frank Geisinger Wilfried Groenwoldt Gudrun Großschupff Kertin Krausz Heike Lamers Cornelia Liedtke Maren Lintzel Petra Meyer Birgit Raschdorff Jürgen Sievertsen Eva Taege Thortsen Thye Dörte Wehnsen Güler Yildirim Dorothea Zander

Genetic cause for severe neurosensory hearing ímpairment among inhabitants of the "deaf village" in Ghana. Two deaf women communicating in the unique sign language developed in their village and DNA sequence electropherograms showing a C -> T mutation in the first position of codon 143 of the connexin-26 gene found in a homozygous form (left) in 17 deaf villagers, and heterozygosity for this mutation (middle) and wild-type genotypes (right) found in 9 and 2 normally hearing family members, respectively.