News & Impressions
Katharina Höfer appointed EMBO Young Investigator
The European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) has selected RTG 2355-PI Katharina Höfer for its Young Investigator programme. Along with 26 other scientists from across Europe who were honoured this year, she will receive financial support and access to mentoring and training programmes for a period of four years. Congratulations, Katharina!
LOEWE professorship at University of Marburg for Katharina Höfer
Microbiologist and RTG 2355-PI Katharina Höfer accepted a professorship at the University of Marburg, funded by the LOEWE excellence program of the state of Hessen. Congratulations, Katharina, and we are happy you will stay with us!
Retreat 2024 to Schmitten im Taunus - we most certainely come back!
Mid-July, we went to the Martin-Niemöller-Haus in Schmitten, Taunus, for our 2024 retreat. We had a great time - elaborate method sessions on RNA secondary structure prediction & analysis and on protein - nucleic acid interactions, very good talks by doctoral candidates, a wonderful poster session outside, and a long hike with many in-depth discussion. What's more, we had very pleasant company: Sussie, our newly appointed "RTG dog". See for yourself..
Joint symposium with the ITN Cell2Cell - a great success
From April 10 to April 12, the symposium "Dynamics in chromatin organization and RNA regulation: adaptation, infection - and beyond" brought about 130 local and international scientists to the JLU main building. The talks covered very diverse aspects of gene expression, ranging from genome architecture and RNA modifications to new methods for single cell analyses; this interdisciplinary character was generally regarded as very inspiring. In addition to keynote speakers Susan Gasser from the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research in Lausanne, Schraga Schwartz from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, and Bas van Steensel from the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, several other international speakers and many members of the two graduate programmes presented their work.
Otto Meyerhofer Prize for Katharina Höfer
RTG 2355 PI Katharina Höfer was recently awarded the Otto Meyerhof Prize of the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (GBM). The prize is allocated bi-anually to an outstanding young scientist who obtained his or her doctorate no longer than 8 years ago at the time of application and who is currently conducting research in Germany; it is endowed with 5.000 € founded by Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma.
JLU immunologist Andreas Krueger joins with a project on miRNAs in T cell development
While the RTG’s renewal proposal was under evaluation, molecular immunologist Prof. Dr. Andreas Krueger was appointed as a professor at the Justus Liebig University Giessen. With his expertise on microRNAs (miRNAs) and their role in the development and regeneration of immune cells, Andreas Krueger was a great addition to the university’s focus on RNA biology. Furthermore, he constituted an excellent fit to the research programme of our RTG, and we are therefore happy to announce that the DFG recently approved funding for an additional RTG-project lead by Andreas Krueger: Together with doctoral candidate Hanna Steede, he will investigate how structural features of the mRNA targets and other context-dependent factors contribute to miRNA function in developing T cells.
"Making mRNA in the wrong compartment" - Guest Lecture by Utz Fischer
In his RTG Guest Lecture on 2 November, Utz Fischer from the University of Würzburg proudly presented the poxvirus RNA polymerase (vaccinia RNAP or vRNAP).
Joint retreat with RTG 2344 in Bad Dürkheim, 2023
In July 2023, our RTG went on a joint retreat with the RTG 2344 "MeInBio" from Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.
JLU bioinformatician Stefan Janssen included in the RTG
For its current second funding period the RTG 2355 expanded its research focus to investigate the functional contributions of RNA structure and structural rearrangements. In order to better address this yet under-studied aspect of RNA biology and to foster respective collaborations, we recently included Prof. Dr. Stefan Janssen, bioinformatician at the Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, in our consortium.
Retreat to the Silbersee, 2022
The retreat to the "Ferienpark Silbersee" in November 2022 was a great occasion for scientific discussions - and great fun.