MEET AND GREET

Over 430 scientists, medical doctors, junior researchers and staff members of the DZL sites met together on 1 and 2 February 2016 at the 5th Annual Meeting of the German Center for Lung Research (DZL) in Hannover in the second funding period of the center (2016-2020). It was also the most highly attended meeting of the past few years since the Kick-off-Meeting 2012 held near Frankfurt/Main, reflecting the enormous growth of the DZL and the soaring importance of the structure. In addition, representatives of COSYCONET (German COPD and Systemic Consequences - Comorbidities Network) were welcomed to the meeting, since the network is now also firmly rooted as a new associated partner in the research group.

„The DZL has established a worldwide leading powerhouse of researchers, tools and cohorts as well as a network of collaborations“, „The structures and processes set up within the DZL are of a very high international standard“ and „The DZL is the only structured, centralized and collaborative strategy of a country, that is concerned with previously unfulfilled scientific and medical requirements in the field of lung disease“, are some of the highlights of the extremely positive results received recently by the DZL in the evaluation carried out in October 2015, presented by the DZL Chairman of the Board, Prof. Werner Seeger in his opening speech. The DZL has made enormous progress since its inception in 2011 – this should not be seen, however, as an achievement to be attributed to those at the managerial level, but rather as a success attained by all those involved, Seeger emphasized.

In the second funding period of the DZL, comprehensive subjects like systems medicine and exacerbations should also be integrated more and more and cooperation between the disease fields, platforms and the German Centers for Health Research strengthened. Further expansion of strategic partnerships is also planned. In addition, the setting up of a comprehensive DZL Academy to promote junior scientists and doctors for the DZL is an important matter.

After the opening speech, senior PIs of the eight disease areas and the Imaging and Biobanking and Data Management platforms presented their strategies for the second funding period (2006-2020) in the Plenum. “The platforms Biobanking and Imaging in particular offer a world-class resource, like the numerous effective techniques and the carefully characterized patient cohorts“, Prof. Werner Seeger echoed the feedback of the reviewers regarding the platforms.

Junior researchers followed on from the talks given by the senior PIs with one presentation each on the disease areas. From the about 230 poster abstracts submitted, representatives from the disease areas had earlier selected the best respective contributions for an oral plenary presentation, the Best Abstract Winners‘ Presentations. In a preceding screening of all the contributions submitted, members of the DZL Technology Transfer Consortium were also able to identify 20 abstracts with patent-relevant content.

Those members of the Scientific Board attending lent the Board of Directors their advice with regard to the results of the evaluation and planning for the second funding period.

Of particular significance at this Annual Meeting were two longer, moderated poster sessions, in which junior researchers could present their projects and members of the audience vote for their favorites for the poster prizes. The poster prizes were presented for each disease area and for the platforms:

Asthma and Allergies, shared prize:

• Alexandra Schröder, poster title: „Immunomodulatory role of IL-37 in asthma pathogenesis“

• Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt, poster title: „A compact endoscope for optical coherence   microscopy (OCM) of the upper airways in humans”

Cystic Fibrosis,shared prize:

• Madline Schubert, poster title: „Generation of disease-specific iPSCs and development of transgenic reporter cell lines for cystic fibrosis disease modelling and drug screening “

• Till Kaireit, poster title: „Functional lung MRI for non-invasive monitoring of regional effects of inhaled hypertonic saline in children with Cystic Fibrosis”

Interstitial Lung Disease (diffuse parenchymal lung disease):

• Tom Kracke, poster title: „Longitudinal analysis in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: changes in lung mass as a new biomarker for quantitative computed tomography”

End-stage Lung Disease:

• Sandra Baus, poster title: „Generation of a NKX2.1/CCSP knockin human induced pluripotent stem cell reporter line for monitoring the generation of respiratory cells”

Pulmonary Hypertension:

• Sebastian Konzok, poster title: „Bacterial and viral PAMPs and cellular DAMPs lead to activation of the inflammasome in human lung tissue ex-vivo”

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD):

• Elsa T. Roxlau, poster title: „The effect of electronic cigarette vapour extract exposure on primary isolated mouse lung cells cytotoxicity and gene expression”

Pneumonia and Acute Lung Failure:

• Ana Ivonne Vazquez Armendariz, poster title: „Establishment of a 3D in vitro lung organoid model to study lung generation and regeneration after influenza virus-induced injury”

Lung Cancer:

• Julia Stump, poster title: „Immunophenotyping in non-small cell lung cancer as source of prognostic information and guide for treatment decisions“

• Swetlana Scheufele, poster title: „Aberrant chromatin status and DNA methylation in lung cancer“

Platforms –Imaging Platform:

• Julius Renne, poster title: „Application of oxygen-enhanced MRI in lung transplantation”

At dinner, the saxophone quartet „sistergold“ rounded off the program with a show performance that impressively demonstrated the size of their lung volume.

On thew second day, the numerous working groups met to discuss current projects, the reviewers‘ feedback and plans for the next funding period. Participants from the Biobanking platform also used the opportunity to see for themselves the Hannover Unified Biobank at the nearby Clinical Research Center Hannover.

Prof. Tobias Welte, Board Member and Director of the host DZL site in Hannover, summed up: „This was an all-round successful meeting with many fruitful conversations, cooperation initiatives and discussions on current scientific findings and research approaches in the field of lung research“.

The 6th DZL Annual Meeting will be held at the Munich site on 30 and 31 January 2017.