BIOSS discusses achievements on annual retreat

Despite the rainy skies covering the black forest and a storm warning 72 researchers of the BIOSS Centre for Biological Signalling Studies made the way up to the Schluchsee on the 21 and 22 of July 2014. Professors, junior scientists and Phd students met to discuss results from different research projects supported by the cluster of excellence of the University of Freiburg. Prof. Dr. Michael Hall, Universität Basel/Switzerland, Prof. Dr. Sara Courtneidge from Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, La Jolla/USA and Dr. Norbert Windhab, Vice President of Strategic Projects at Evonik Industries AG/Health Care in Essen joined the meeting in their function as scientific advisory board.

Prof. Dr. Michael Reth, the speaker of BIOSS, opened the session by showing how BIOSS did in the past year. With over 200 publications in 2013 BIOSS produces as much as 10 % of the universities science and technology publications. He also summarized the meetings purpose that was to present results and outlooks of all three areas of research BIOSS is dedicated to:

• Area A: Intracellular Signalling Pathways
• Area B: Supracellular Signalling Systems
• Area C: Synthesis and Engineering

Prof. Dr. Carola Hunte presided the first session and presented the results from projects of Area A. New insights on protein channels, mitochondrial transport and complex protein machineries were discussed. In the following session, junior scientist groups and the Toolbox, the service facility of BIOSS, had the opportunity to present their work. The next day Prof. Dr. Roland Zengerle chaired the session presenting research at BIOSS C. Five speakers showed results that combine fundamental research and engineering. For example, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schamel presented how he analyses molecules on the surface of T cell of the immune systems with synthetic biology methods. Junior professor Dr. Virginie Lecaudey then presented the achievements of research area B and her research on signals during development of zebrafish embryos. This was followed by talks on signaling in cancer cells and on plant development.

Finally the advisory board granted two Phd students the BIOSS Retreat Poster prize 2014 for a well-designed, comprehensively presented summary of research results. The winners were Samuel Juillot, from junior professor Dr. Winfried Römers group, who presented a tool tested in vitro which visualizes protein transport inside a cell with optogenetics and Dominik Mai, from junior professor Dr. Olaf Ronnebergers group for the presentation of an image detection program for cells inside a tissue.