MoHAD: Mechanisms of Health, ​Ageing and Disease

Our mission is to envision a future in which biomedical research and clinical practice are connected through continuous, bidirectional discovery loops rather than linear translation pathways, enabling biology-driven strategies that address the major causes of mortality and multimorbidity. Fundamental biological mechanisms operate across tissues and evolve differently over time. Aging and environmental exposures shape tissue-specific trajectories, predisposing organs to distinct but interrelated diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular and renal disorders, metabolic disease, and neurodegeneration.

Within MoHAD, mechanistic hypotheses are investigated across these disease domains and tested in defined tissue contexts through experimental medicine and clinical trials. Clinical observations, longitudinal cohorts, and therapeutic outcomes generate new fundamental questions, sustaining discovery loops between laboratory and clinic. Central to this approach is the development of mechanism-based biomarkers and diagnostics that capture early biological change, reflect tissue vulnerability, enable patient stratification, and provide quantitative readouts of therapeutic efficacy across diseases. Via integration of deep mechanistic biology, disease-specific expertise, advanced technologies, and patient-derived data, MoHAD supports a progressive transition from reactive intervention after disease manifestation toward earlier, biology-guided, and personalized approaches that can prevent, delay, or modify multiple diseases. Through this learning system, MoHAD contributes to novel approaches that tackle complex multimorbid disease eventually improving resilience and quality of life across the lifespan.