The superior mission of the DDZ, as defined in the bylaws of its board of trustees, is to contribute to the reduction of the individual and societal burden of diabetes mellitus by interdisciplinary research. The characteristic feature resides in the cross linking of molecular and cell biological basic research with clinical and epidemiological research approaches. In particular, the scientific contributions of the DDZ aim at the goals of improving prevention, early detection, diagnosis and therapy of diabetes mellitus and its sequelae as well as improving the epidemiological data regarding diabetes in Germany. In addition to this, the DDZ is the German reference center of the Leibniz-Association of the disease entity diabetes. In this capacity, the DDZ provides scientific information on diabetes mellitus for all players in the health care system for public use.
