We are delighted to announce that our graduate school is now offering two annual congress travel grants of € 750 each to particularly motivated and talented doctoral members of our BIOME cores (i.e. members of the cores: Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience; Cellular and Molecular Immunology; Clinical Research; Computational Biomedicine; Genetics and Cell Biology; Infectious Diseases; Ischaemia, Reperfusion and Angiogenesis; Transplantation Medicine; Tumour and Signalling). These travel awards may be used to contribute towards registration fees, travel expenses and/or accommodation costs. Candidates should submit their applications to BIOME for the upcoming year by the end of January of the congress year e.g. by 31.01.2020 for a congress in 2020.

The core "Genetics and Cell Biology" withdrew to the countryside of Essen-Werden for a one day retreat organised by Rebekka Vogtmann and Camilla Wilk. The guest speaker, Nina Schulze, a BIOME alumni member of the same core, gave a most useful talk on the analysis of microscope data. Each doctoral candidate was given the chance to present their own work, with Nicole Barwinski winning the prize for the best talk and Jana Quentin receiving the best poster presentation award. The day of intense scientific exchange was pleasantly rounded off with a retreat dinner with all participants in the old town of Essen-Werden.

Once again BIOME's best wishes go to the science slammer winner at the Medical Faculty's Research Day 2019, Leonard Quiring, who won the democratic vote for his building block analogy of mitochondria during fusion and fission. BIOME-affiliated poster prize winners include Hanna Abberger, Mareike Eilbrecht, Friederike Krempe, Mona Langer, Sophia Elisabeth Layer, Lara Maria Schöler, Vittoria Palmieri, Robert Jan Pawlik, Beatrice Thier, Rebekka Vogtmann, Ayan Mohamud Yusuf, and Ben Zhao. Excellent work, and congratulations to all.

Nestled in the woods of Venusberg in Bonn, the 2019 retreat of the cores Immunology, Infection, and Tumour and Signalling was perfectly organised by Julia Lill, Jonas Schuhenn and Natalie Wossidlo. Invited guest speakers were Christian Pallasch (Universitätsklinikum Köln), Marc Stemmler (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg) and Arturo Zychlinsky (MPI Berlin) who respectively offered those present fascinating insights into the topics of macrophages, cell plasticity in metastasis, and the miracle of NETs. The three poster prizes were awarded by the scientific jurors to Julia Lill, Annika Weiss and Finn Wichmann, while Daria Frank was selected for the award for the best talk. Congratulations!

Our warmest congratulations go to the three BIOME doctoral members, Simon Merz, Lea Bornemann and Sebastian Korste, who have achieved the great international distinction of reaching the Top 20 in the 2019 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition which is "a leading showcase for photomicrographers from the widest array of scientific disciplines" (quote: nikonsmallworld.com). Their entry showing the intricate web of blood vessels of a murine heart following myocardial infarction was awarded 20^th place.

Combining current research with medical history the Ischemia, Reperfusion and Angiogenesis core held their retreat in the library of the Stadtmuseum Gütersloh. A tour of the museum before the scientific exchange enabled the next generation of scientists to peek at key exhibits like Robert Koch's desk and an iron lung from the 1950's. Beside selected student talks, a further highlight was the Power Point karaoke challenge. Dr. Jan Strecker (Münster) was invited to give a keynote lecture.