The Medical Faculty has introduced a new funding structure for outstanding biomedical science doctorates to support them during the critical initial career phase after their PhD: the BIOME Postdoctoral Excellence Programme (BIOME-PEP). Its first scholarship holder is Dr. Elisabeth Littwitz-Salomon who was awarded her doctoral degree with summa cum laude in April 2016. “I’m highly delighted to be offered the chance through this programme to further my current research at UK Essen and to possibly develop new therapeutic approaches in acute and chronic viral infection.” Read more

The Immunology and Tumour cores withdrew to the countryside in Hamminkeln this year for their joint annual retreat which was organised with great attention to detail by Alexandra Frey and Gina-Eva Görtz with on-site support by Sören Latteyer. Excellent and inspiring talks were given by the invited keynote speakers Johannes Roth (University of Münster), Christian Ottmannn (Technical University of Eindhoven) and Adelheid Cerwenka (German Cancer Consortium - DKFZ - Heidelberg). The high level of doctoral presentations made the scientific jury's selection of the best lecture and poster prizes extremely difficult. After long discussion and deliberation, the lecture award was granted to Natalia Block and, in the name of fairness, two poster prizes (instead of the foreseen one) were given to Nadine Beckmann and Florian Murke.

Martina Cremanns, Christina Heiselmayer, Verena Höfer, Manuela Kirch and Maike Olsowski were the organisers of the successful Genetics and Cell Biology core retreat in Aachen this year. Guest speakers invited to share their expertise included Wolfgang Wagner (RWTH Aachen), Arnaud Rondelet (Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology, Dortmund) and Martin Zenke (RWTH Aachen). The winners by democratic vote of the best presentation prizes were Miriam Lutomski and Kerstin Köhler.