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

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

"GSCN 2020 Young Investigator Award"

Prof. Dr. Barbara Treutlein will receive the "GSCN 2020 Young Investigator Award" for her outstanding research in the field of single cell analysis and research into the development of human organs, such as the brain. Barbara Treutlein acquired her PhD in single-molecule biophysics at LMU Munich, Germany. During her Postdoc with Stephen Quake at Stanford University, she pioneered the use of microfluidic-based single-cell transcriptomics to dissect the cellular composition of complex tissues, and to elucidate differentiation pathways during lung development and cell reprogramming. Since 2015 she has been a Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and held a tenure-track assistant professorship at TU Munich. Since 2019, she is Professor for Quantitative Developmental Biology at the ETH Zürich D-BSSE, Switzerland. Her group uses and develops single-cell genomics approaches in combination with stem cell based 2- and 3-dimensional culture systems to study human organogenesis. For her work, Barbara Treutlein has received multiple awards, including the Friedmund Neumann Prize of the Schering Foundation and the Dr. Susan Lim Award for Outstanding Young Investigator of the International Society of Stem Cell Research.

Barbara Treutlein 

Prof. Dr. Edith Heard will receive the "GSCN 2020 Female Scientist Award" for her outstanding achievements in epigenetic and developmental biology research on X-chromosome inactivation in females. Her professional career as a researcher shows a successful path that could be considered a model and motivation for many women scientists: The London-born molecular biologist studied at Imperial College in London where she received her PhD in 1990 in the field of cancer research. She then spent nine years at the Institute Pasteur in Paris, first as a postdoc and then as a permanent researcher, before taking a one-year sabbatical at Cold Spring Harbor in the USA. In 2001, she established her own group at the Institute Curie and became director of the Institute's Genetics and Developmental Biology Department in 2010. Edith Heard was appointed professor at the Collège de France in 2012 where she holds the chair of epigenetics and cellular memory. In January 2019, she started work as Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. The Heard group at EMBL combines genetic engineering and genomics with a range of cell biology and imaging approaches to investigate the role of chromatin modifications, chromosomal organisation and non-coding RNAs in the process of X chromosome inactivation.

"GSCN 2020 Publication of the Year"

Sergiy Velychko and Prof. Dr. Hans R. Schöler will receive the "GSCN 2020 Publication of the Year Award" for their discovery of the unnecessary, if not obstructive, role of Oct4 in stem cell reprogramming. When Nobel Prize winner Shinya Yamanaka discovered stem cell reprogramming, he used the four transcription factors Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc to reprogram adult cells back into a state of pluripotent stem cells, similar to embryonic stem cells. Since then, these four factors have been used to generate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). Velychkov and Schöler have now shown that reprogramming without Oct4 enables the generation of mouse iPS cells with improved development potential and superior quality.

Publication: Sergiy Velychko, Kenjiro Adachi, Kee-Pyo Kim, Yanlin Hou, Caitlin M. MacCarthy, Guangming Wu, Hans R. Schöler (2019) „Excluding Oct4 from Yamanaka cocktail unleashes the developmental potential of iPSCs”, 2019, Cell Stem Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Vol. 25, Issue 6, Dec. 2019, 737-753.e4, DOI:10.1016/j.stem.2019.10.002

"GSCN 2019 Young Investigator Award"

Dr. Nico Lachmann receives the "GSCN 2019 Young Investigator Award" for his outstanding research work as a young scientist. Early on, he combined methods for the genetic modification of stem cells in order to provide genetically improved cells for novel therapies. Dr. Lachmann was particularly fascinated by the macrophages, important cells of the immune system. The focus on macrophages has changed considerably in recent years and Dr. Lachmann has contributed significantly to the current understanding of macrophages. In his work, he has used different stem cells in order to install macrophages as a new and promising cell-based treatment approach for different diseases. By using both multipotent and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), Dr. Lachmann has used macrophages to uncover the development of different diseases. In addition, he created new systems for the generation of blood cells from iPSCs and demonstrated the long-term therapeutic benefit and regenerative potential of stem cell-based macrophages in the lung.

Nico Lachmann 

Prof. Dr. Ana Martin-Villalba receives the "GSCN 2019 Female Scientist Award" for her outstanding achievements in the biology of neuronal stem cells. Her laboratory at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg aims to understand the mechanisms of neuronal plasticity that underlie the malignant transformation in neurooncology and are essential for the reconstruction of the central nervous system (CNS) following injuries in regenerative medicine. Martin-Villalba focuses on the understanding of stem cell decision processes in the adult brain. What are the differences in the healthy, injured and aging brain? How does the decision to differentiate a stem cell into a specific nerve cell work in detail? This decision forms the basis for the contribution of stem cells to brain function and repair in injuries and neurodegenerative disorders. Wrong decisions can cause malignant changes that lead to brain tumors. To study stem cells in the CNS of a living organism, Martin-Villalba has adopted a multidisciplinary approach that combines genetically engineered mouse models with injury and cancer models and cutting-edge technologies in single cell analysis such as line tracking, epigenomics and transcriptomics. Its cutting-edge research is reflected in the publication successes in the journals Nature and Cell in 2019 alone.

"GSCN 2019 Publication of the Year"

Dr. Germán Camargo Ortega and Prof. Magdalena Götz received the "GSCN 2019 Publication of the Year Award" for their discovery of the important role of the protein Akna in the decision of the stem cell whether and how it differentiates further. Together with Dr. Sven Falk and Dr. Pia A. Johansson, the other first authors*, Camargo Ortega observed that the protein Akna, for example, controls the behavior of neural stem cells via a mechanism that might also be important for the formation of metastases. The scientists isolated cells that either renew themselves and form further neural stem cells or differentiate and form nerve cells. They found that the protein Akna was found in much higher concentrations in the stem cells that developed into nerve cells. If it was less present, the stem cells remained in the niche, whereas higher protein concentrations increased the detachment of the stem cell from its niche and thus promoted differentiation into a neural cell. The scientists were particularly surprised by the position of the protein on the centrosome, a small organell inside the cell that is responsible for the organization of the cytoskeleton and cell division. The researchers were able to show that Akna anchors the cell scaffold in the form of microtubules. This can weaken the connections to the neighboring cells and promote detachment and migration from the stem cell niche. This mechanism identified by Akna can play a central role in various medically relevant processes.

"GSCN 2018 Young Investigator Award"

Dr. Nina Cabezas-Wallscheid is the winner of the “GSCN 2018 Young Investigator Award” prize honoring her excellent research work as a junior scientist. She is examining the conditions that put blood stem cells into a sleep-like basic state. While the activity phases of blood stem cells following inflammation or injury are well understood, the molecular path back to sleep mode is still far from elucidated. These sleep phases protect stem cells from genomic mutations caused by excessively rapid cell division and stress events such as chemotherapy, as well as preserving their lifelong functionality. Blood cell stems are found in the bone marrow and generate the different blood cell types throughout life. Malfunctions increase the likelihood of pathological developments such as leukemia, for example. The conditions leading to the incidence of blood cancer are still largely unknown. Cabezas-Wallscheid has shown that nutrition also has an impact on the dormant and waking state of blood stem cells, and therefore the production of heathy blood cells: ricinoleic acid, a vitamin A metabolite, improves the capacity of active blood stem cells to return to their dormant state, protecting them from damaging effects.

Born in 1982, Dr Nina Cabezas-Wallscheid, studied biotechnology in Barcelona and Parma. After gaining her Doctorate in Mainz, she conducted her post-doc research in the “Stem Cells and Cancer” department (Professor Andreas Trumpp) at the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) in Heidelberg. Since 2017 Nina Cabezas-Wallscheid has been active as Senior Researcher in the department of Professor Rudolf Grosschedl at the Max-Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI-IE) in Freiburg.

Prof. Dr. Maria Elena Torres-Padilla receives the "GSCN 2018 Female Scientist Award" for her outstanding achievements in the research of early embryonic development. In particular, she investigates the state of totipotency, the ability of early embryonic stem cells to develop into all cell types. Torres-Padilla is internationally recognized as an expert in chromatin research in the early embryonic development. She focuses on the transitions of cellular potency and epigenetic reprogramming and investigates molecular mechanisms thereof in the mouse model. She heads the Institute of Epigenetics and Stem Cells (IES) at the Helmholtz Zentrum München and aims at a better understanding of the molecular processes underlying cellular plasticity in order to develop better therapeutic approaches for regenerative medicine and infertility treatment. She is also involved in initiatives for communicating the importance of basic research to a broad public and to decision-makers.

Professor Maria Elena Torres-Padilla is an elected EMBO member and Extraordinary Young Scientist at the World Economic Forum. Since 2016 she heads the Institute of Epigenetics and Stem Cells (IES) at the Helmholtz Zentrum München and is professor of stem cell biology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. After studying biology in Mexico City, the native Mexican obtained her doctorate in Paris, went to Cambridge (UK) as a postdoctoral fellow and habilitated in Strasbourg.

"GSCN 2018 Publication of the Year"

Dr Maja Milanovic and Professor Clemens Schmitt are the winners of the “GSCN 2018 Publication of the Year Award” acknowledging their work on the effects of triggering a cell ageing program (senescence) on tumor cells. Triggering cellular senescence, and thereby achieving a definitive cell division arrest, is an important therapeutic approach for impeding tumor cell growth. Milanovic and Schmitt investigated the downsides of senescence, involving the triggering of epigenetic reprogramming in tumor cells. In such instances, a tumor cell program (tumor stemness) counters the therapeutic objective, enabling aggressive tumor cell growth, thereby favoring treatment failure and potentially the formation of metastases. By way of a novel single-cell analysis method, the scientists at the Charité University Medical Department in Berlin and the Max-Delbrück Centre for Molecular Medicine (MDC) observed the moment in which stem cell reprogrammed senescent tumor cells sometimes spontaneously revert to the cell division cycle, enabling them to unfold their newly gained stem cell potential in the first place. The results show that tumor cells can defend themselves aggressively and effectively against cancer treatments by reprogramming to stem cell characteristics. At the same time, proceeding on these insights, the team of scientists derived genetic and drug-based strategies for neutralizing tumor stemness.

Publication: Maja Milanovic, Dorothy N. Y. Fan, Dimitri Belenki, J. Henry M. Däbritz, Zhen Zhao, Yong Yu, Jan R. Dörr, Lora Dimitrova, Dido Lenze, Ines A. Monteiro Barbosa, Marco A. Mendoza-Parra, Tamara Kanashova, Marlen Metzner, Katharina Pardon, Maurice Reimann, Andreas Trumpp, Bernd Dörken, Johannes Zuber, Hinrich Gronemeyer, Michael Hummel, Gunnar Dittmar, Soyoung Lee & Clemens A. Schmitt. “Senescence-associated reprogramming promotes cancer stemness”, 2017, Nature 553, 96-100.

2017 "GSCN Young Investigator Award"

Dr. Francesco Neri receives the "GSCN 2017 Young Investigator Award" for his excellent research as a junior scientist. He explores the damage caused by aging processes in organ and tissue functions. As humans and other mammals age, the risk of developing diseases such as cancer rises. There is increasing evidence that genetic and epigenetic factors influence the functionality and homeostasis of adult stem cells in old age and promote the selective advantage of dominant stem cell clones, which eventually leads to cancer development. Especially DNA methylation (a stable and hereditary epigenetic modification) is associated with age-related diseases and cancer. Neri researches the epigenetic changes of aging stem cells and their function in the formation of clonal dominance and neoplastic changes.is interested in understanding how a single cell embryo develops into an adult organism.

2017 "GSCN Publication of the Year"

J. Gray Camp and Keisuke Sekine have discovered how single cells work together and use their genomes to develop into human liver tissue. The results were published by an international research team led by Takanori Takebe (Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center) and Barbara Treutlein (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig). In the current study, the researchers employ the technology of single-cell RNA sequencing for their analyses. With this method, they observed the alteration of individual cells when combined in a three-dimensional micro-environment with vascular cells, connective tissue cells, and liver cells that communicate with each other. The researchers developed a complete set of active transcription factors, signaling molecules and receptors for each of these cell types, before and after their combination to form liver tissue. The single-cell RNA sequencing aided the researchers in comparing the three-dimensional liver tissue produced from stem cells in the laboratory with naturally occurring human fetal and adult liver cells. The study is a milestone towards the production of healthy, human liver tissue from pluripotent stem cells using biotechnology. The publication is the "GSCN 2017 Publication of the Year Award".