To celebrate the 80th birthday of Klaus Unsicker: discovery of a new growth factor and studies on the effects of growth factors on adrenal chromaffin cells and neurons.

Klaus and his team's results strongly suggest that motoneurons and also sensory neurons that are expressing either GDF15 receptor GFRAL or GDF15 can bind to and signal via an alternative, still unknown receptor. Graph Klaus Unsicker published first studies on growth factors investigating the effects of nerve growth factor (NGF) on adrenal chromaffin cells in 1977-1978 (Unsicker et al. [13], [14]). They bind to ligand specificity determining GDNF family receptor alpha (GFR ) proteins and signal to the cells via transmembrane receptor tyrosine kinase RET. [Extracted from the article]