The 6th RTG meeting took place on the 20th of January at the Research Centre Borstel. About 20 people attended the meeting, which included Principal Investigators (PIs) and doctoral candidates.
In the morning, we got a very interesting introduction by Prof. Dr. Stefan Ehlers, the head of the Research Centre. He talked about the different areas (different kinds of lung diseases) the centre investigates. Afterwards, we got three lab tours. During the tour in the division of Molecular and Experimental Mycobacteriology, Dr. Susanne Homolka showed us their laboratory and we got to know one of their main tools, the MiSeq System. The second lab tour took place at the division of Infection Immunology, where Dr. Kristina Ritter explained some facts about cytokine-mediated regulation of protection and pathology in tuberculosis. Because of high safety conditions, we were not allowed to enter their lab. During the last labtour in the division of Asthma Exacerbation & Regulation, Dr. Michael Wegmann guided us through their working areas and he talked about possible causes, symptoms and progression of Asthma. Even if time was short, we got some small insights into the different labs and their procedures.
In the afternoon we started our 6th RTG meeting. General topics of the RTG were discussed, including the upcoming Mini-proposal, the doctoral candidates have to elaborate. Gabriela Rios Martini (Associated Doctoral Researcher) started with her introducing talk „Characterization of microbe-specific T cell response in IBD“ as a new member of the RTG. Arunabh Sharma, doctoral researcher in TP7_2018, continued with his talk "Can genetic similarity explain microbiome similarity in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases?" Finally our guest speaker Dr. Dominik Schwudke, head of Bioanalytical Chemistry at the Research Centre Borstel, gave his talk about „Lipid Metabolic Consequences of Infection and Immune System Activation“ and discussed issues like the changing lipid profile in case of tuberculosis infection with us.
Herrenhaus, Research Centre Borstel, Lab Tour “Infection Immunology” copyright: RTG 1743, Juliane Brandes
