BIOME congratulates Prof. Dr. Ulf Dittmer on receiving the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. This is an outstanding recognition of Prof. Dittmer's engagement and endeavours over the years. Established fifteen years ago, in 2010, Ulf Dittmer is our graduate school's founder and chair.

Laudatory words from NRW Minister-President Hendrik Wüst: "Professor Dr. Ulf Dittmer is President of the [Society of] German-speaking virologists, Director of the Institute of Virology at Essen University Hospital, and Co-Director of the West German Center for Infectious Diseases (WZI). Alongside the Charité, the WZI was the most important institution in Germany when it came to the question of how best to treat COVID patients. Prof. Dittmer established sound SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics at his institute at an early stage. He made a significant contribution to the implementation of a vaccination campaign for healthcare workers at the Essen site. At the time, he was also Vice President of the [Society of] German, Austrian, and Swiss virologists. Political consulting and communication, including within society, were part of his "daily business."

Prof. Dittmer is also especially committed to the University of Duisburg-Essen. He is their longest-serving senator. He heads the Graduate School of [Biomedical] Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen and has established programmes for young scientists. Promoting young researchers is particularly important to him.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, he has been responsible for providing medical care to Ukrainian refugees in Essen. Equally important is his strong commitment to establishing infection diagnostics in Ukraine itself. Many refugees and war-wounded individuals can now be treated there and tested for the increasing incidence of infectious diseases. This was previously virtually impossible. Within two years, Prof. Ulf Dittmer has succeeded in establishing a diagnostics programme that has since become a beacon of excellence in Ukraine.

Dear Professor Dittmer, you have already received numerous awards for your outstanding commitment. Today, you are being awarded the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Please wear it as a token of our collective appreciation for your efforts."

^{(Transcript source: Land NRW website)}

BIOME congratulates Dr. Dr. Xiaoyan Wang on completing her double doctoral degree at the Medical Faculty of the University of Duisburg-Essen after finishing the graduate school's MD/PhD programme. This is truly a rare and brilliant achievement!

After studying medicine at the Capital Medical University in Beijing, China, Xiaoyan Wang's research journey began at PD Dr. Wibke Bayer's group at the Institute for Virology in March 2021, and in September 2023 she successfully defended her MD thesis on the analysis of the seroprevalence of binding and neutralizing antibodies against 39 human adenovirus types, earning the academic title Dr. med.. Xiaoyan then commenced her PhD research on the analysis of the immunogenicity of human adenovirus types, of long-term dynamics in human adenovirus seroprevalence, and of adeno-associated virus seroprevalence, completing her Dr. rer. nat. degree in March 2025. 

During her four-year MD/PhD studies, Xiaoyan has published three first-author and one joint first-author publications. She has been actively involved in scientific exchange within the virology community, presenting her research at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Virology for four consecutive years (2022–2025), as well as at the 2nd Sino-German Mobility Programme Annual Workshop held in Shanghai and Wuhan in June 2024.

Xiaoyan says, "These four years have been an incredibly enriching experience for me. I've learned so much - whether in terms of experimental techniques, scientific thinking, or presenting research outcomes. Now, upon obtaining my MD/PhD degree, I'm truly grateful for the support throughout this journey in the BIOME programme."

BIOME's MD/PhD programme especially equips young researchers to pursue a career at the frontier of ground-breaking medicine. Our first MD/PhD candidate, Dr. med. Dr. rer. nat. Ilseyar Akhmetzyanova, acquired her MD degree at our Medical Faculty in 2012 which was then crowned with a PhD in June 2015.

The three BIOME cores, Cellular and Molecular Immunology, Infectious Diseases, and Tumour and Signalling, gathered locally off-campus for their annual interdisciplinary research exchange. Every doctoral researcher was given the opportunity to present and discuss their work with peers either in talks or posters in a translational environment. Invited guest speakers were Daniel Sauter (Universitätsklinikum Tübingen) who shared his insights on the mechanisms of innate antiviral immunity, and Cornelia Monzel (Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf), an experimental medical physicist who focuses on multimodal imaging in chimeric antigen therapy. Both keynote speakers also briefly described their personal career paths and gave the young researchers some words of advice for their professional futures based on their own experience. The two-day event ended with the awarding of certificates for the three best poster presentations to Nadine Gausmann, Leonie Kerkmann, and Kulvara Kittisares, while the best lecture award went to Jillian Brown. Special mention should also be made of the members of the 2024 doctoral retreat orga-team consisting of Elaheh Madadi Hiagh, Hannah Breiter, Frederik Schramm and Yue Yu who put in a lot of background effort towards making this event the overall success it was.
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