Almost 170 doctoral students took part in the 23rd Research Day of the Medical Faculty of the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE). In the morning, the doctoral students' poster presentations were evaluated by 3-4 internal assessors in a total of 17 groups. The afternoon programme was opened by Prof. Dr. Ulrike Bingel, Vice Dean for Research, and Prof. Dr. Anke Hinney, Vice Dean for Academic Career Development and Diversity, presenting the doctoral award from the German Society for Transfusion Medicine and Immunohematology (DGTI) to the BIOME alumna, Dr. Laura Thümmler. Thereafter, Prof. Dr. Georg Schett from Erlangen University Hospital gave his guest lecture on the topic “CAR T cell therapy in autoimmune diseases”, which was followed by the science slam. Two BIOME doctoral students ended up competing with each other to take home the coveted award as Science Slammer of the Year. In the end, Melissa Ix won the 500 Euro prize for her slam “Your Nose Knows” on the topic of Parkinson's. Pascal Schneider received a participation bonus of 100 Euros for his slam “The Antenna of the Cell”. At the end, the 17 best poster presentations were awarded 350 Euros each, including the BIOME members, Lara Kaumanns, Michelle Elbert, Jasmin Schmidt, Janina Müller, Patrick Pais Pereira, Paula Steinhoff, Johanna Sophie Gronen, Eva Diesterbeck, Areya Tabatabai, Adila Apsara, Svenja Christina Erkelenz, and Sarah Lena Schebitz. Once again, all prizes were provided by the StiftungUniversitätsmedizinEssen.

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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Meeting in Cologne, the Ischaemia, Reperfusion and Angiogenesis annual retreat began with the keynote speaker, Markus Aswendt (University of Cologne Clinic). His lecture on "The role of astrogliosis in recovery after stroke - a functional connectivity study in mice" took the young researchers from the translational roadblock and what can be done about it, to how to implement these rules in practice in the laboratory. The importance of electronic lab notebooks, group-specific data storage, automated data processing (for MRI, histology, etc.) and "standard operating procedures" (SOPs) was highlighted. This way, even after members leave the working group after successful graduation, the raw data can be found again, and the documentation of the experiments can be used for e.g. publication. As a practical example from his working group, an experimental study with KO mice lacking two astrocyte proteins after photothrombosis was presented. These mice did not recover as well after the stroke as their littermates, which could be proven e.g. with MRI, histology and behavioral tests. Astrocytes are therefore important for recovery from a stroke. After the exciting and very informative lecture, many questions were asked and discussed.

Following this, the day continued with the doctoral presentations. In these group presentations, the systemic effects of kidney ischemia, atrial fibrillation, pregnancy, or a stroke were explained and subsequently also lively discussed. Thereafter, the Body Worlds exhibition was visitied, where the exhibits were viewed with great interest and sometimes disbelief. Despite medical prior knowledge (to varying degrees), there was much to discover and learn there.

The relevance of sex and gender-sensitive medicine has become more evident during the last decade. It is clear that this is a central field in medical research and patient care and is important for most medical disciplines. Women and men can suffer from the same diseases but these may manifest themselves in different ways. This is mainly due to the different genetic and hormonal constitutions, which affect anatomy and physiology. It can result in different disease risks, patho-physiologies, symptoms and progression. In addition, sociocultural factors influence the disease process differently in men and women, generating a highly complex multifaceted situation. However, sex and gender differences in medical care as well as in research and teaching are still insufficiently considered. To bridge this gap, Prof. Dr. Anke Hinney and PD Dr. Andrea Kindler-Röhrborn have initiated a multidisciplinary training programme for next-generation MD and PhD researchers in basic, translational, and clinical research aspects of sex and gender-sensitive medicine, kicking off in October 2024.

"We regard the core as an interdisciplinary platform for knowledge and method transfer, a forum for scientific discussion, and a starting point for a network of early career researchers and alumni who are dedicated to fostering sex and gender-sensitive medicine," says Prof. Anke Hinney.

Immediately after the 4th Berlin-Bochum-Memory-Symposium, the Collaborative Research Center SFB 1280 on extinction learning and the graduate schools IGSN (International Graduate School of Neuroscience at RUB) and BIOME (Graduate School of Biomedical Science at UDE) combined forces for a two-day symposium in Bochum with intense interaction with international keynote experts from around Europe and the United States. Four symposium rounds and brainstorm sessions were held. Topics and speakers included “Neural aspects of associative learning: Mechanisms and Methods” with Matthew Larkum, Sarah Ayash, and Florian Freudenberg; “Comparative hippocampal memory formation” with Tom Smulders, Hannah Payne, and Uwe Mayer; “Depression, Anxiety and Stress: Illuminating cognitive control” with Grant S. Shields, and Marloes Henckens; and “Modeling neural dynamics” with Franziska Bröke, Diana Burk, and Lorenzo Fontolan.

This event went a long way towards strengthening the synergy in this field between the participating institutions, namely the Ruhr University Bochum, the University of Duisburg-Essen's hospital, Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors at TU Dortmund and Philipps University Marburg.