Retreats & Schools

This year, the HBIGS retreat took place in Esslingen am Neckar, a beautiful and historic city that offered a pleasant setting to step away from daily lab routines and spend time together as a community.
After arriving at the EcoInn Hotel in the afternoon, the retreat opened with a career-focused talk by our HBIGS career advisor, Sandra Martini. She introduced us to different career options after the PhD, highlighted the importance of networking, and encouraged a discussion on how our PhD community can continue to grow. This was complemented later in the retreat by an inspiring talk from Dr. Shan-Hua Chung, who shared insights into her own professional path and gave helpful advice on the application process and working in the biotech sector in Germany.
The following days were filled with science and curiosity. Through oral and poster presentations, the students shared their research across a wide range of fields, including plant biology, cellular protein function, as well as cancer, rare, and infectious diseases. The presentations led to many thoughtful questions and lively discussions, highlighting both the diversity and quality of the scientific work carried out within HBIGS.
The retreat also offered time to connect beyond the scientific program. Unplanned long dinners gave everyone the chance to continue conversations in a more relaxed atmosphere, exchange experiences about the PhD journey, and get to know each other better. A guided tour through the historic catacombs of Esslingen added a special highlight to the program, taking us through medieval remains of an old church and an impressive historic water tank.
To conclude the retreat, prizes were awarded for outstanding student presentations. The poster prize went to Abdinasir Adow for his research on covalent rhodamine-binding proteins, while Snehith Dyavari Shetty received the prize for the best oral presentation for his work on the murine leukemia virus.
Overall, the retreat was an enjoyable opportunity to exchange ideas, reflect on future careers, and strengthen the HBIGS community in the charming setting of Esslingen.
Organizers: Anežka Kramná, Soria Gasparini, Lara Rohleder
Report by Soria Gasparini & Lara Rohleder

Participants

Abdinasir Adow (MPImF), Claudia Bastl (Dept. Inf. Dis.), Zeynep Cokluk (ZMBH), Benedikt Dürr (COS), Mary-Lyn Eichhorn (Dept. Inf. Dis.), Bu Erte (COS), Saswata Ganguly (ZMBH), Soria Gasparini (Dept. Inf. Dis.), Michelle Georgi (Dept. Inf. Dis.), Ayami Iijima (University Hospital Mannheim), Aliyu Jabir Muhammad (Inst. Hum. Gen.), Anna Kraeft (University Hospital Heidelberg), Kramná, Anežka (Dept. Inf. Dis.),  Vera Lechner (Dept. Inf. Dis.), Sidney Mitsch (University Hospital Heidelberg), Sayan Mondal (ZMBH), Rohleder, Lara (Dept. Inf. Dis.),  Elizaveta Savochkina (BioMedX), Shetty, Snehith (Dept. Inf. Dis.), Miquel Tibau Baltrons (University Hospital Heidelberg), Yueyang Xie (University Hospital Heidelberg), Jungeun Yun (ZMBH), Yuqing Zhang (ZMBH)

Impressions

“The era of human gene therapy - prospects and challenges”

Over half a decade ago, the idea of gene therapy has been conceptualized, i.e., the treatment of a human disorder with an inherent or acquired genetic component by fixing the genetic problem at its source. Historically, gene therapy was defined as the addition or replacement of a critical gene in a given cell type using a delivery vehicle or a so-called vector, such as a recombinant virus. Nowadays, following the advent of powerful technologies for gene and genome editing such as CRISPR, a broader definition of gene therapy comprises any ex vivo or in vivo attempt to treat conditions with a genetic cause by over-expressing, adding, suppressing or editing (gene, genome or epigenome) targeted nucleic acids in a patient’s cells.
The enormous power and far-ranging potential of human gene therapy has already been illustrated in thousands of successful clinical trials and is best exemplified by the FDA and/or EMA approval of numerous gene and cell therapy drugs. A representative example that is also administered at Heidelberg University Hospital is the gene therapeutic Zolgensma, which is a recombinant Adeno-associated virus (AAV) expressing a gene (SMN1) in children at the age of 0-2 that is critically involved in spinal muscular atrophy. Most recently approved additional examples include another AAV-based drug, Elevidys, for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, or the CRISPR-based drug Casgevy that is directed against sickle cell disease.
While these and abundant further examples showcase the tremendous promise of human gene therapy as a leading medicine of the future, concurrently increasing findings of severe toxicity or even fatality in treated patients also drastically highlight the need to return to the bench and design the next wave of gene therapeutics combining high efficacy with maximum safety. Clearly, this ambitious and clinically utmost relevant task requires a joint, international and interdisciplinary effort merging a wide array of expertise including but not limited to molecular and cell biology, virology, biochemistry, immunology, synthetic biology, engineering, bioinformatics, structural biology, optogenetics, modeling, AI and machine learning.