GSCN 2023 Young Investigator Award

Dr Meike Hohwieler from Ulm University Hospital receives the GSCN 2023 Young Investigator Award from the German Stem Cell Network (GSCN). The stem cell biologist conducts research on the early development of pancreatic diseases.
In her research at the Institute of Molecular Oncology and Stem Cell Biology at Ulm University Hospital, Meike Hohwieler develops pancreatic organoids from pluripotent stem cells. These models serve to deepen the still largely unknown understanding of the developmental biological processes of both the healthy human pancreas and its diseases. Organoids reproduce the developmental steps of human cells much more adequate than mouse models and can thus also partially replace animal experiments. For this purpose, Hohwieler developed a kind of cell chip which an read the early developmental stages of the cells and which enables a systematic development of the pancreatic organoids. Her findings pave the way for innovative possibilities in the early detection of pancreatic carcinomas as well as diabetes. Pancreatic cancer is a cancer that is often detected very late, is very heterogeneous and has an exceedingly poor prognosis: Five years after the diagnosis, only twelve percent of patients are still alive.

Meike Hohwieler completed her Master studies in Molecular Biotechnology at the Technical University of Munich and joined the lab of Alexander Kleger at the Ulm University hospital in 2012. Here, she participated in the International PhD program in Molecular Medicine of Ulm University and obtained the doctoral degree with her work on “Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-​derived Pancreatic Organoids to Study Cystic Fibrosis in a Dish”.

Meike Hohwieler 

GSCN 2023 Publication of the Year
Ruzhica Bogeska, ... Michael D. Milsom from Division of Experimental Hematology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) & HI-STEM, receive the GSCN 2023 Publication of the Year Award for the publication “Inflammatory exposure drives long-lived impairment of hematopoietic stem cell self-renewal activity and accelerated aging” in the journal Cell Stem Cell, Aug. 2022.
The manuscript examines the long-term consequences of inflammation and infection challenge on hematopoietic stem cells, leading to the surprising observation that these stem cells never functionally recover from such challenges. This data supported a model where the inhibitory effect of such challenges can accumulate during an individual’s lifetime, even if the exposure to such agonists is separated by weeks, months or even years. In support of this hypothesis, mice exposed to inflammatory challenge in early to mid-life demonstrated an accelerated hematologic aging phenotype and developed features of normal human aged hematopoiesis that are not routinely observed in laboratory mice.
At the GSCN Conference 2023 in Ulm, Ruzhica Bogeska will give the award lecture on 14 September.

Publication: 
Inflammatory exposure drives long-lived impairment of hematopoietic stem cell self-renewal activity and accelerated aging in the journal Cell Stem Cell, Aug. 2022