SGVIVI founder Prof. Ulf Dittmer, President of the German Society for Virology, and SGVIVI member Prof. Matthias Gunzer contributed with their invaluable scientific expertise to the annual conference of the Chinese Society of Virology, held  at Fudan University, Shanghai Medical College. The conference with more than 800 hundred participants was hosted by SGVIVI member Prof. Zhenghong Yuan, president of the Chinese Society for Virology. SGVIVI member Prof. Jieliang Chen was one of the chairs guiding through the Sino-German session. 

"How do exogenic and endogenic viruses interact ?" The SGVIVI had the honour to host Prof. Douglas Nixon, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York City, who gave us new insights into his field of research.

Due to the pandemic all previous activities of the Sino-German Mobility Programme "Targeting the host-immune response to control chronic viral infections" (2020-2023) had to be conducted online. Finally, in August 2023, the annual workshop could be held on-site in Essen. All 7 Chinese PIs managed to get their visa in time:  Jia LIU, Jieliang CHEN, Baoju WANG, Jun WU, Ejuan ZHANG, Shi LIU, Chunchen WU. However, only 3 students (Yumeng LI, Asha ASHUO, Jianyu YE), all from Shanghai, managed to get their visa in time from the German Consulate in Shanghai.

The workshop under the guidance of PD Dr. Kathrin Sutter (Essen) and Ass.-Prof. Dr. Jia Liu (Wuhan) started with plenary talks of the invited guest speakers PD Dr. Roland Scharzer, Institute for Translational HIV Research, Essen, and Prof. Dr. Jörg Timm, Institute for Virology, University Hospital Düsseldorf. During the intensive workshop week progress reports were held and research ideas were discussed in detail. More scientific stays and an on-site workshop in Wuhan with all German PIs travelling to China in June 2024 are in the pipeline. 

In the picture: all Mobility Programme PIs and Prof. Dongliang Yang (Wuhan), Prof. Ulf Dittmer, Prof. Mengji Lu and coordinator Ursula Schrammel, Essen.

By the hybrid format we could again reach a large audience from our SGVIVI and beyond for the talk of Prof. Sarah Rowland-Jones, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, UK. Her field of research: "HIV-2 infection and pathonegnesis"

A large audience in our seminar room and online participated in the great hybrid SGVIVI event with the talk of Prof. Michaela Müller-Trutwin, Head of the HIV, Inflammation and Persistance Unit at the Institute Pasteur, Paris: "Trained Immunity and Viral Control"

It was our pleasure to have Prof. Chen Dong with us, a famous immunologist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He shared his valuable insights with us online on "T follicular helpers in infection: regulation and function mechanisms".

The pandemic situation in Germany allows us to continue our lecture series on-site in Essen and offer these as hybrid talks for the SGVIVI members in China. On 10 June 2022 we had the pleasure to receive Dr. Gerald Voss, Scientific Director of the Tuberculosis Initiative (TBVI) and Executive Director of SciPeo Sprl, a life science consultancy, Belgium. He gave us some insights into "The COVID-19 vaccine development and lessons for pandemic preparedness" and shared with us his experiences as a consultant for CEPI  (more: https://cepi.net/)   We were happy to beeing able to provide our Chinese SGVIVI members with this opportunity and access to participate in discussions of the international science community.

More than forty SGVIVI members and affiliated postdocs and doctoral students met online for the talk with Prof. Shibo Jiang  from Fudan University, College of Basic Medical Sciences: "Development of Pan-sarbecovirus Vaccines and Pan-CoV Fusion Inhibitors".
Prof. Jiang obtained his M.S. and M.D. degrees in China. He worked as a postdoc at the Rockefeller University in New York and as Laboratory Head in the LFK Research Institute of the New York Blood Center. He joined Fudan University as a professor in 2010. His major research interest is the research and development of antiviral vaccines and therapeutics against HIV, HPV, coronaviruses, and influenza viruses and, since 2020, the research and development of highly potent broad-spectrum anti-coronavirus vaccines, antibodies, and therapeutics. His publication list: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=shibo+jiang&sort=date&size=200

Many departments at the University Hospital Essen have contributed to the research on COVID-19. The West German Center for Infectious Diseases (WZI) at the University Hospital organized an online symposium in order to gather and highlight the outstanding results. Among the speakers were SGVIVI members Ulf Dittmer, who is also board member of the WZI,  and Kathrin Sutter, Mirko Trilling and Adalbert Krawczyk. All of them have high-ranking COVID-19 publications and presented their ongoing research, especially the joint research with SGVIVI members at Wuhan Union Hospital, Department of Infectious Diseases. The Chinese SGVIVI members in Wuhan, Shanghai and Guangzhou had the opportunity to join the ZOOM webinar from China.
COVID-19 Symposium programme

Due to the pandemic the 2021 SGVIVI Annual Meeting on 22-23 April had to take place as an online event. Allthough we would have preferred to meet in person - either in China or in Germany - the online concept for our annual meeting gave us the extraordinary chance to bring together great people and expertise. More than 50 particpants have joined the meeting. As special guests and plenary speakers the SGVIVI was proud to welcome Prof. Ralf Bartenschlager (Heidelberg) and Prof. Fusheng Wang (Beijing). SGVIVI members from Essen, Wuhan, Bochum, Shanghai, Munich, Guangzhou and Hannover have contributed their special expertise and made a high-level programme possible. Details

In the picture: Prof. Dongliang Yang (Wuhan), Prof. Ulf Dittmer (Essen) welcoming Prof. Bartenschlager (Heidelberg)

SGVIVI members Zhenghong Yuan from Shanghai Fudan University and Xin Zheng and Jia Liu from Wuhan Union Hospital were invited to take part and hold presentations as guest speakers at the 30th GfV Annual Conference which, due to the pandemic, had to be conducted completely online. They presented their latest research on Hepatitis B, COVID-19 and IFN-α subtypes:
"New sight into the type-specific functions and related mechanisms of IFN-α against Hepatitis B Virus" (Zhenghong YUAN)
"The long-term anzibody response in symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 patients" (Xin ZHENG)
"SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell memory is long-lasting in the majority of convalescent COVID-19 individuals" (Jia LIU)

The SGVIVI members Prof. Ulf Dittmer and Prof. Mirko Trilling as well as Prof. Oliver Witzke, Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases, University Hospital Essen, are scheduled for talks at the 3rd International Symposium on Infectiology and Application. The high ranking symposium is organized by SGVIVI members from Fudan University, Prof. Zhenghong Yuan and Prof. Youhua Xie, and other leading experts in the field. The opending address will be given by Nobel laureate Charles M. Rice.
meeting programme.

Due to the Corona pandemic the Sino-German Mobility Programme could not start in 2020 as previously planned. However, all 15 Mobility Programme members met online via ZOOM for their 1st joint meeting in November (programme) and gave an overview on their research since the approval of the programme. As the programme mainly supports travelling and the exchange of researchers within their network the programme is put on hold until travelling will be possible again. The young researchers and SGVIVI PIs hope to be able to realize at least part of the mutual scientific stays in China and in Germany in 2021.  

The SGVIVI Annual Meeting which was scheduled for April 25-26 in Wuhan,  had to be cancelled due to the outbreak of the Corona virus in Wuhan and the ongoing worldwide pandemic. Meanwhile, our members are in close contact via video conferences and apart from their special fields of expertise also work on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 research. Please also see: projects at the Wuhan-Essen Joint Laboratory and publications.

In the frame of the GfV Annual Conference 2019 in Düsseldorf the SGVIVI members presented their latest research in a special SGVIVI session. For more information please check the GfV conference website: https://www.virology-meeting.de/

As in previous years the Institute for Virology in Essen assisted the GfV conference organizers with hosting a delegation of collegues from the Chinese Society of Microbiology/Virology Division (see above picture). This year, together with our Chinese SGVIVI members, almost 30 Chinese colleagues attended the conference. The delegation was headed by Prof. Deyin Guo, Sun Yat-Sen University Medical School, Shenzhen Campus, who held a welcome address at the GfV conference.

The 2nd SGVIVI General Assembly meeting took place at the Institute for Virology, University Hospital Essen on Tuesday, 19 March, 2019, prior to the GfV Annual Conference in Düsseldorf (above picture). Click here for the programme
Here, we have the pleasure to announce that Prof. Deyin Guo, Dean of Sun Yat-Sen University Medical School,  Shenzhen Campus, and head of the Chinese Society for Microbiology/Virology Division became member of the SGVIVI.

An international symposium on infection, immunity and liver diseases was held at in Wuhan on 9 June, 2018, organized by TRR60 speaker and SGVIVI founding member Prof. Dr. Dongliang Yang. The following SGVIVI members from Essen, Wuhan and Shanghai participated as guest speakers: Ulf Dittmer, Mirko Trilling, Matthias Gunzer, Ruth Bröring, Jia Liu, Jieliang Chen and Sandra Westhaus (group Sandra Ciesek, Essen).

Medical Faculty, University Hospital, University of Duisburg-Essen and Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, HUST, Wuhan

Topics: infectious diseases, immunology, proton therapy, neurosurgery

In June 2018 a delegation from University Hospital Essen travelled to Wuhan to hold the 2nd Wuhan-Essen Joint Medical Symposium, jointly organized by the medical faculties in Essen and Tongji Medical College. The 1st Joint Symposium was held in Essen in 2016. This time, apart from the SGVIVI researchers from Virology, Gastroeneterology and the Imaging Center (all PIs of the former TRR60), Karsten Wrede from Neurosurgery and Dirk Geismar from the Proton Therapy Center (WPE) also joined the delegation.

The SGVIVI General Assembly convened in Essen on 9 November 2017 for its 1st meeting. The SGVIVI Scientific Committee has been elected and the scientific and administrative secretaries have been named.