The German Center for Diabetes Research is using a graph database, specifically Neo4j, to connect and visualize data from various disciplines and locations. The goal is to prevent and treat diabetes by analyzing large amounts of data, including genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic information, as well as clinical trial data. The researchers aim to identify patterns and connections between different types of data to better understand the metabolic nature of diabetes and develop new treatments. They are also working on extending their graph database with publicly available literature data to improve pattern recognition and machine learning techniques for disease prevention and treatment.