GSCN 2022 Young Investigator Award

Simon Haas receives the "GSCN 2022 Young Investigator Award" for his excellent research about the complex interplay between the immune system, blood stem cells, cancer cells and factors from the cellular environment. To this end, Simon Haas and his research group are developing novel single-cell and spatially resolved technologies. With his set of complex methods, Simon Haas has redefined the map of how blood cells arise from blood stem cells. In addition, Simon Haas' laboratory is developing highly accurate, personalized diagnostic and prognostic approaches based on single-cell technologies. These newly developed approaches will enable early disease detection and personalized treatment strategies with the long-term goal of therapeutically preventing cancers before their onset.
Simon Haas studied Molecular Cell Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biosciences at Heidelberg University, Imperial College London and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). He received his PhD from DKFZ and Heidelberg University in 2016. Simon performed research at DKFZ, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard. In 2016 he became research group leader at HI-STEM and the DKFZ. As of 2020, Simon is an independent group leader at the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), the Charité university medicine and the Berlin Institute of Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB) at the Max Delbrück Center (MDC) in Berlin, Germany

Simon Haas 

GSCN 2022 Publication of the Year

Adam C. O’Neill, Fatma Uzbas, Giulia Antognolli and  Florencia Merino as well as Magdalena Götz from Helmholtz Munich and Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU) receive the "GSCN 2022 Publication of the Year Award" for their joint publication "Spatial centrosome proteome of human neural cells uncovers disease-relevant heterogeneity" in the journal Science 2022. As a central cell organelle the centrosome is responsible, among other things, for the organization of the cytoskeleton and cell division. Dysfunction of the human centrosome is associated with many neurodevelopmental disorders. Until now, it was assumed that the centrosome is very similar in all cells due to its general tasks. However, it may differ between cells more than thought: the composition of proteins in centrosomes varies greatly depending on the cell type, i.e. more than half of them change as the neural stem cells become neurons. The new analysis could uncover new association of brain malformations with the centrosome, and explains why a mutation in a protein present in all cells causes disease only in the brain (because only there it is at the centrosome).The new analysis could thus become an important resource for testing further associations with neuronal diseases and for tracking down mechanisms of additional diseases.
At the GSCN Conference 2022 in Münster, Dr. Fatma Uzbas will give the award lecture on 15 September.

Publication: "Spatial centrosome proteome of human neural cells uncovers disease-relevant heterogeneity" , Science 2022

Adam C. O'Neill

Fatma Uzbas

Giulia Antognolli

Florencia Merino

Magdalena Götz

"GSCN 2021 Young Investigator Award"

Prof. Dr. Elvira Mass receives the "GSCN 2021 Young Investigator Award" for her outstanding research in the field of the developmental significance of macrophages as cells of the innate immune system. Mass showed that macrophages, so-called big eaters, are long-lived and are an integral part of organogenesis. When mutated, they can initiate maldevelopments, e.g., in the brain, and play a decisive role in later diseases. Thus, Mass is changing the understanding of macrophages in their role in embryonic organ development and their influence on disease ontogeny and progression.

Elvira Mass (35) studied biology at the University of Bonn and earned her doctorate at the Life and Medical Sciences Institute (LIMES). In 2014, she joined Frederic Geissmann's lab at King's College in London and followed him a few months later to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. From there, she returned to the LIMES Institute at the University of Bonn in 2017 as a group leader. In 2019, she became a professor for "Integrated Immunology" at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. In 2020, she moved to a professorship at the LIMES Institute. Mass has received several awards, including the Heinz Maier Leibnitz Prize in 2020 and the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Young Investigator Award in 2021.

Elvira Mass 

Prof. Dr. Katja Schenke-Layland receives the "GSCN 2021 Hilde Mangold Award" for her significant research on the translation of findings from early human development into applications for regenerative medicine with a special focus on the extracellular matrix. Her career as a scientist and science manager shows a path of success that could be exemplary and inspiring for young women researchers: After studying biology and completing her doctorate in Jena, Katja Schenke-Layland moved to the USA, first as a postdoc and later as an assistant professor in Los Angeles, for in-depth research on cardiovascular tissue. From 2010, she took on various leadership positions in Germany at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology in Stuttgart, while also being an Associate Professor at UCLA in Los Angeles and, from 2011, Professor of Medical Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at the Medical Faculty of the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen. Since 2018, she has been the Director at the NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute in Reutlingen.

"GSCN 2021 Publication of the Year"

Katharina Scheibner and Heiko Lickert receive the "GSCN 2021 Publication of the Year Award" together with Ingo Burtscher and Silvia Schirge for their joint publication "Epithelial cell plasticity drives endoderm formation during gastrulation", published 2021 in Nature Cell Biology. The scientists from the Institute of Diabetes and Regeneration Research at Helmholtz Zentrum München gained new insights into the formation of the endoderm cotyledon during gastrulation, the first phase of embryonic development. The researchers show that the formation of the endoderm cotyledon is regulated by the plasticity of the epithelial cells. This allows the cells to leave the epithelium and migrate away. This is important not only to understand how a fertilized egg becomes a whole organism, but especially to understand how hereditary diseases develop. This understanding could help improve cell replacement therapies. (Scheibner, Schirge, Burtscher et al., 2021: Epithelial cell plasticity drives endoderm formation during gastrulation. Nature Cell Biology, DOI: 10.1038/s41556-021-00694-x)

Publication: Scheibner, Schirge, Burtscher et al., 2021: Epithelial cell plasticity drives endoderm formation during gastrulation. Nature Cell Biology, DOI: 10.1038/s41556-021-00694-x

Katharina Scheibner

Silvia Schirge

Heiko Lickert

Ingo Burtscher