Report 2nd Doc’s Meeting 24.01.2022
Starting at 9 am, two PhD Students gave an intense insight into their current project work. Stephan-Maurus Schneiders of the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology (IKMB) from Kiel University (CAU)/University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH) presented his work with the focus on intestinal immune regulation, such as specific T cell reactions in correlation to different pathogens and altered immune reactions. His aim is (amongst other things) to identify molecular and cellular signatures that predict the clinical onset of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). In the discussion, he reported problems recruiting probands during the pandemic. Afterwards, Jerome Genth from the Institute for Experimental Medicine (IEM)/Division for Proteomics & Bioanalytics at CAU/UKSH presented his work on microbial proteomics and the effects of environmental factors on the human intestinal microbiota. He reported about the deeply investigation of top-down vs bottom-up proteomics and gave a great outlook on outer membrane vesicle analysis methods.
Afterwards Dr. Jingyuan Fu from the university of Groningen (Netherlands) gave a really fascinating presentation about her career and her current work.
She is currently a Professor in System Medicine, with a particular focus on host-microbe interactions and integrative omics methods. She conducted her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry at the Nanjing University (China, 1995) and her Master of Science in Bioinformatics at the Wageningen University (Netherlands, 2003). She finished her PhD successfully with the title “Bioinformatics for Genetical Genomics: Novel Experimental Design and Algorithms” at the University of Groningen (Netherlands, 2007).
In the beginning of Dr. Fu’s talk at this Doc’s Meeting she gave some insights about her career. Her thrilling career comprises a variety of fields over the years, ranging from plant genomics and bioinformatics to medical microbiology and -omics methods. She also reported about people who helped her during her journey, suggesting a books series from Ritsert C. Jansen (“Developing a talent for science”, “Funding your Career in Science”, “Leading your research Team in Science”) and stressed out the importance of mentoring, tutoring and teamwork in science. She reported about her current work, being responsible for a big working group in Groningen.
Amongst other things, Dr. Fu explained the handling of large quantities of varying samples for the different studies and gave an insight into the phylogenetic analysation of the genetic clustering from bacterial species. Another interesting project she is currently working on is the development of a HoxBan system that can co-culture microbes with Caco2 cells on gut chips and liver chips. The system does not allow the culture anaerobic microbes on it yet, but they are currently planning to set up a new lab, which would allow to place the system in an anaerobic chamber.
The internal meeting with just the PhD Students started at 1 p.m. First of all, we discussed some organisational issues. We decided the next DocsMeeting will take place in September. Jerome Genth and Stephan Schneiders will be the organizers of the next meeting, Eike Wacker and Kathrin Schäfer will give a presentation about their project work. Theresa Wilkat will be our representative. This provides us the opportunity to have our interests represented, in case we have special concerns that we discussed beforehand and then bring them to supervisors/coordinators of the research unit group through Theresa. Afterwards, Frederike Eickhoff visited the internal meeting as a mentor and presented the concept of collegial advice. We decided against the “kollegiale Beratung” (Peer-to-Peer counselling), due to time issues. We will look for another individual workshop for our group.
