The distinguished scientist and CEO of the Clinical Trial Center, Hannover, Heiko von der Leyen, and the expert on paediatric haematology and oncology, Dirk Reinhardt, Director of the Paediatric Clinic III, Essen, were BIOME's guests of honour at the inauguration of the core on Clinical Studies. Amongst the participants were also the 20 first generation doctorates of the new BIOME core. In addition, four students from the Faculties of Medicine and Biology, Maria Göbel, Abdelaziz Shabaneh, Niklas Weltermann und Anne Goertz, shared impressive insights into their own clinical studies.

The University of Duisburg-Essen's first MD/PhD candidate, Dr. med. Dr. rer. nat. Ilseyar Akhmetzyanova, has successfully completed her second doctoral degree. In 2012 Ilseyar acquired her MD degree which was topped with a PhD this week. The MD/PhD programme especially equips young researchers to pursue a career at the frontier of ground-breaking medicine.

A closer look at the finer details of doctorates' work was shared internally at the annual retreat of the Immunolgy and Tumour cores. An environment of vigorous and interactive discussion in smaller groups during the poster session was well generated by the organising duo, Anna Lollies and Michel Bremer. The plenary sessions were chaired in turn by Alina Meyer, Yahya Al-Matany, Marija Kovacevic, Felix Vogel and Stefanie Pikos.

The diversity and complexity of the biomedical research currently being conducted at both the main campus (Biology) and the medical campus (Medicine) was beautifully reflected at this year's meeting of the core "Genetics and Cell Biology". Organised by Jana Stanurova and moderated by PhDs, this inner city retreat offered participants not only an insight into trans-faculty work at UDE, but also into the fascinating studies being performed by the groups of James Adjaye (Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf), Alexander Bird (Max PIanck Institute of Molecular Physiology, Dortmund), Stefan Herlitze (Ruhr University Bochum) and Volker Mailänder (Johannes-Gutenberg-University, Mainz).