Since 20 years the Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research (IZKF) Würzburg supports (physician-)scientists at the University Hospital and the Medical Faculty of Würzburg University. The success of this important intramural research program fostering an open-minded and strong interdisciplinary research culture in Würzburg was celebrated on June 24, 2016. These festivities provided the opportunity for Prof. Andreas Beilhack to present most recent research achievements of his IZKF-funded research laboratory. In his lecture, titled “In vivo veritas – Novel concepts for immunotherapy”, he provided translational perspectives for the development of novel diagnostics and drugs to treat patients suffering from inflammatory diseases and cancer.

Dr. Agnes Birner with Profs. Hermann Einsele and Andreas Beilhack

On Saturday, June 4, 2016 at this year’s commencement of the Würzburg University Medical School we celebrated the graduation of Dr. Agnes Birner. Congratulations!

It was a festive ceremony honoring the achievements of this year’s freshly graduated MDs and of Würzburg University Hospital’s former director, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Christoph Reiners, who was awarded the Rinecker Medal in Gold. Another highlight was the fantastic music performance by the consummate virtuoso Jiechu Chen on the piano, who is also a medical student at Würzburg University. 

Prof. Angela Krackhardt and Prof. Markus Schwaiger organized a translational research meeting at the Technical University of Munich/Klinikum rechts der Isar to advance state-of-the-art in vivo imaging techniques for visualizing immune cell responses in patients. Prof. Anna Wu from UCLA gave the Keynote Lecture on ImmunoPet probes for profiling tumors and immune responses. This provided also a wonderful opportunity for Tim Steinfatt from the Beilhack lab to rejoin with his former thesis mentor. Prof. Beilhack presented his group’s recent technical advances and latest results of translational research strategies to improve immunotherapy in cancer patients.

Success at the 7th Advances Against Aspergillosis Conference 2016, Manchester, UK:

Travel scholarship and oral presentation to Natarajaswamy Kalleda, and Poster Prize to Dr. Jorge Amich.

Outstanding Young Investigator Award at the Human Fungal Pathogen to Dr. Jorge Amich, presented by Eukaryotic Cell.

The interview days to select the best candidates for the new PhD research training group “3D Infect” take place in Würzburg. Within this project scientists from different disciplines take a novel route to investigate microbial infections under close-to-natural conditions.

Agnes Birner has successfully defended her medical thesis about pathomechanisms in acute GvHD. Congratulations Dr. Birner on your accomplishments! We are very proud of you!

The Beilhack Lab welcomes Kerstin Sarter Zaiss, PhD. Kerstin graduated from University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, where she completed her thesis work on Galectins at the Institute of Clinical Immunology. After postdoctoral training in Erlangen she moved to the Department of Pathology and Immunology at University of Geneva Medical School, Switzerland. Kerstin is an expert in preclinical mouse models and clinical immunology.

Zaiss et al. (2016). J Exp Med. 213(2):177-187.

The Beilhack Lab welcomes Zeinab Mokhtari, PhD. Zeinab graduated from the distinguished research group of Prof. Marc Thilo Figge at Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany. She has a strong background in applied systems biology and is an expert on the quantitative analysis of migrating and interacting immune cells from image data.

Mokhtari et al. (2014). PLoS ONE 9(12): e115158.

Prof. Andreas Beilhack and Prof. Harald Wajant are winners of the 2015 m4 Award 2015 of the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Media, Energy and Technology.

Dr. Jorge Amich has been awarded with an MRC Career Development Award of the Medical Research Council, UK.

Stefanie Schwinn was selected from 300 applicants for a “Medical Excellence Scholarship” of the Manfred Lautenschläger-Stiftung, which will support her brain cancer research.

Natarajaswamy Kalleda had been selected for an inner circle poster award at the 4th European Congress of Immunology (ECI 2015), September 6 – 9th, 2015 in Vienna, Austria.

Dr. Ana-Laura Jordán Garrote has received the 2015 Else-Kröner Poster Award for Translational Immunology.