Last year, the PhD students of the International Giessen Graduate Centre for the Life Sciences (GGL) invited me to to deliver a keynote lecture during the annual conference. To sum up the event: I had a blast! On the one hand, it was great to return to my Alma Mater – the Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen – for a scientifically very diverse and exciting meeting covering ten interdisciplinary research sections. On the other hand, I could catch up with old friends and colleagues many of whom I am still collaborating with.

This year, a speaker invited to deliver a keynote lecture at the conference unfortunately had to cancel on short notice. I was lucky enough to be asked to step in and present some of our recent data at the 2019 GGL conference on September 4th. Needless to say, that after the great experience last year, I agreed immediatly. And again, I very much enjoyed the conference and the scientific discussions. It was great to see the enthusiasm of the GGL students and to listen to their talks on very diverse and exciting topics.

I would like to thank the students of the ‘Protein and Nucleic Acid Interactions’ section of the GGL (and in particluar Christina Pfafenrot) very much for hosting me and the entire GGL team for the hospitality!

The 24^th annual meeting of the RNA Society took place from June 11^th to 16^th in the beautiful city of Krakow, Poland. It was a scientifically very stimulating conference with great talks on virtually all aspects of RNA biology. I am very happy that our abstract on how Drosophila Sister-of-Sex-lethal antagonizes Sex-lethal auto-regulatory feedback to reinforce a male-specific gene expression pattern was selected for a talk.

The conference also was the perfect opportunity to catch up with colleagues many of which have become close friends over the years – the RNA society truly has become my scientific family!

 

 

On February 14^th and 15^th, the second Regensburg – Canberra Symposium on RNP Biology took place at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra with the aim to further strengthen our collaborations and to pave the way for establishment of an international PhD program. It was great to meet down under and to hear about the exciting research on RNA biology at the ANU.

I would like to thank our colleagues in Canberra very much for organization of this wonderful meeting and for their generous hospitality.

John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University

It was a particular honor to be invited by the students of the International Giessen Graduate Centre for the Life Sciences (GGL) to deliver a keynote lecture during the annual conference which features an exciting and diverse program covering ten interdisciplinary research sections. The two days were packed with fascinating talks covering diverse topics ranging from ecology and bioresources to reproduction, cardiovascular disease, immunity and metabolism.

Apart from the great conference, it was particularly nice to return to my Alma Mater – the Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen – and to catch up with old friends and colleagues in the various departments. Also, I was very impressed by the new buildings (on and close to the life science campus) – an extraordinary demonstration of how well the University is developing and growing.

I would like to thank the students of the ‘Protein and Nucleic Acid Interactions’ section of the GGL very much for the kind invitation and the entire GGL team for the hospitality!

Picture courtesy of Dr. L. Lück, managing director of the GGL

It was a particular honor to be invited for the PhD choice lecture to the conference of the Collaborative Research Center 902 – Molecular Principles of RNA-based Regulation which took place on August 29^th and 30^th 2018 at the Otto-Stern-Zentrum in Frankfurt am Main. The conference featured many exciting talks on diverse topics in RNA biology.

I would like to thank the PhD students very much for the invitation – it was a real pleasure to participate in the conference!

Organized and hosted by the DFG-funded Research Unit 2333 ‘Macromolecular complexes in mRNA localization’ (FOR2333), the RNA transport meeting 2018 took place from March 3^rd to 6^th in Düsseldorf. The keynote lectures by Christine Mayr and Erin Schuman were embedded in an exciting scientific program that featured talks by 18 invited speakers and by members of the FOR2333 network. For us it was a great opportunity to share and discuss our latest findings with the community.

picture courtsey of M. Feldbrügge

Registration is now open for the RNA transport meeting 2018, hosted by the Forschergruppe2333! The Conference will take place from March 3^rd to 6^th, 2018 in Düsseldorf. It features a great line-up of invited speakers and aims to bring together various experts from a broad field of RNA biology with the goal of representing the current state of the mRNA-localization field. It’s going to be a really exciting meeting – you don’t want to miss out on that, so make sure to register soon!

 

The second Sino-German Symposium on RNA Biology with the title `From Big Data and Structure to Novel Mechanisms´ was held in Shanghai from November 4^th to 8^th. It was an exceptional meeting featuring many scientific highlights!

The meeting was co-organized by the CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology (co-established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Society) and the CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology. I want to thank our hosts for their outstanding hospitality and the great organization. It was a truly outstanding combination of state-of-the-art science with cultural and culinary highlights in the vibrant city of Shanghai. Xièxiè to all of you!

 

What a great meeting!

The International meeting of the SFB960 on ‘The Biology of RNA-Protein Complexes’ has just finished. We are all exhausted but also thrilled about the outstanding research that was presented. Four days of exciting and cutting edge science, 4 keynote lectures, almost 50 talks, 70 posters and more than 150 participants! Really a great meeting.

We want to thank all the participants for the lively discussions, the speakers for showcasing their fascinating research, the session chairs for coordinating the sessions and discussions and for  making the speakers staying in time (we really had a busy schedule), and of course we want to particularly thank all the invited speakers for supporting our conference by accepting our invitation. Also, we want to acknowledge the people that helped setting up everything – the past days were quite hectic and we had many helping hands that did the work.

Thanks to all of you and we hope you all had safe travels home!

 

The president of the University of Regensburg Prof. Dr. Udo Hebel (on the right) and the organizers of the SFB960 conference on  ‘The Biology of RNA-Protein Complexes (from left to right: Prof. Dr. Herbert Tschochner, Dr. Jan Medenbach, Prof. Dr. Dina Grohmann, Prof. Dr. Thomas Dresselhaus – Prof Dr. Gunter Meister missing in the picture).

 

This is going to be really exciting!

The International meeting of the SFB960 on ‘The Biology of RNA-Protein Complexes’ is just around the corner…From October 11^th to 14^th, there will be exciting talks about the latest research on RNPs. Keynotes will be by  Allan Hinnebusch, Reinhard Lührmann,  Roy Parker, and Nahum Sonenberg. Check out the rest of the program and make sure to register before August 31^st – there is only a rather small number of free places left!

 

Did you ever go to a conference addressing a topic well outside your comfort zone? No? Well, then you are missing out on some great and exciting science!

I was recently invited to the German American Frontiers of Engineering (GAFoE) Symposium in Evendale, Ohio, by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The sessions were planned to cover a great diversity of topics ranging from ‘Gene Editing’ to topics that initially sounded rather mysterious to me, like ‘Advanced Manufacturing’, ‘Industry 4.0 vs. Industrial Internet of Things’, and ‘Streams of Water and Information’. To be honest, I was puzzled about the invitation to participate. I didn’t really feel like somebody who could contribute a lot to this meeting. But then I thought why not try something new? I eventually accepted the invitation and that turned out to be a great decision!

In particular the sessions with the rather mysterious titles were the most exciting and fascinating ones to me! Everything was new and every single talk provided me with novel insights into topics that I had so far not really thought about a lot. Looking beyond one’s own nose can sure be a very stimulating and exciting experience! I feel that during this GAFoE meeting from March 31^st to April 2^nd, 2017, I learned more than in the previous three meetings combined.

But hearing about novel topics is one thing – it was even more exciting to meet the many other, enthusiastic participants. Most of them felt to be non-experts, too, and they were evenly excited to expand their knowledge into the other disciplines. This created a unique atmosphere and stimulated discussions that continued at the hotel bar into the early morning hours.

So, if you ever get invited to a meeting that addresses a topic that appears quite distant to your own research interests, don’t immediately turn down the invitation – rather think about the great opportunity  to learn something new and meet new people.

 

I would like to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for the invitation and the travel stipend, the National Academy of Engineering, GE aviation for hosting us, and all the organizers for putting together such a great meeting!

 

 

From March 13^th-15^th, the DFG Forschergruppe FOR2333 met at the EMBL in Heidelberg to discuss the latest scientific results. In parallel several workshops were offered that provided hands-on training on various exciting topics including: an introduction to structural biology (by Dierk Niessing and Fulvia Bono), an introduction to bioinformatics (by Kathi Zarnack and Markus Seiler), image analysis (Imre Gaspar), and preparation of scientific figures (by Helena Jambor).

‘During these two very exciting days I have learned a lot and had a great time being part of this wonderful meeting.’ (Rebecca Moschall)

 

picture courtsey of Dierk Niessing

The second meeting of the DFG funded Research Unit FOR2333 ‘Macromolecular Complexes in mRNA Localization’, took place from September 2nd to 5th in the wonderful city of Duesseldorf in North Rhine-Westphalia. Exciting research was presented from all participating labs (Bethune, Bono, Ephrussi, Feldbrügge, Jansen, Kiebler, Niessing, and Zarnack – in alphabetical order) and the associated mentee Inga Lödige. I am very happy for the invitation to participate in this wonderful meeting and for being given the opportunity to present some of our recent progress in the nanos project. Michael Feldbrügge and his team were wonderful hosts, organizing additional social activities that stimulated scientific discussions – of course while enjoying the famous local ‘Alt’-beer.

(picture courtsey of Dierk Niessing)