Three years of the Mildred Scheel Young Investigators Center at UCCH- Symposium on November 22, 2022 at Erikahaus

Since 2019, the German Cancer Aid (DKH) has been funding our Mildred Scheel Cancer Career Center as one of five selected centers in Germany. Since 2020, we have already supported more than 40 Medical and Clinician Scientists in a wide variety of funding lines, through funding of positions, but also through support, advanced training, coaching, mentoring and networking.

This is a good reason for us to pause for a moment and look back before we start the next three years of DKH funding. For this reason, we cordially invite all interested colleagues to our first MSNZ Hamburg Symposium on November 22, 2022, starting at 9 a.m. in the Erikahaus (W29) on the UKE campus.In three lecture sessions and one poster session at noon, MSNZ Fellows will present the results of their projects and invite discussion.

Finally, our Advisory Board Member, Prof. Bruce Zetter (Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Boston, MA, USA) will summarize the symposium embedded in the current state of research in the field of dissemination and metastasis. This will be followed by an opportunity to network and exchange ideas over a snack and a glass of wine or water.

We look forward to welcoming all interested colleagues and also potential new MSNZ Fellows to this exciting event. As the number of seats available at the Erikahaus is unfortunately limited, we ask for your understanding that we will only be able to inform you after the end of the registration period whether you have been able to secure a place on site. In any case, for all those who cannot be present on site, we offer the possibility to follow the symposium/presentations via livestream and also to join in the discussion.

If you now feel like meeting us on November 22, please register/register for the event by sending an email to msnz@uke.de by November 15, 2022 and indicate/indicate if you would like to be there on site. We will then notify you/you in a timely manner. You can find a program/poster for the symposium here .

To view the livestream, enter here !

Join us on November 22, we are looking forward to meeting you!

Third Cancer Careers Day of MSNZ and UCCSH on October 28, 2022: Research abroad

On October 28, the third joint Cancer Careers Day of the MSNZ Hamburg and the University Cancer Center Schleswig Holstein took place. This time, the topic of the online event was "Research abroad-going overseas...and back ? Funding options & experiences".

After three helpful overview presentations by Inga Melzer (MSNZ Hamburg), Kristin Günther (University of Hamburg) and Dunja Hofmann (Kooperationsstelle EU der Wissenschaftsorganisationen, KoWi) on various funding options (download of the slides is possible by clicking on the respective name!), Prof. Susanne Sebens led into the second part of the program.

Here, six researchers reported on their diverse experiences with stays abroad. Moritz Eißmann emigrated to Melbourne, Australia, almost 10 years ago and has been conducting research there ever since, Christina Rolling and Anna Maxi Wandmacher have conducted research stays (short and long) as Clinician Scientists in the USA and Great Britain, respectively. Sebastian Eustermann, after a stay in Great Britain and a stopover in Munich (from Hamburg's point of view almost "abroad" :-)), is now a research group leader at the EMBL in Heidelberg, Michael Landreh, after stations in the Netherlands, USA and Great Britain, is now Associate Professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and Susan Brooks from Oxford is a professor who runs a career support program at her university. Experiences were shared in a friendly atmosphere on job applications, resumes, living abroad with children and other topics.

When asked by the moderators at the end of the meeting how many of the attendees could now concretely imagine a stay abroad after the exchange, there was a lot of positive feedback; this shows that the event was quite successful. We are looking forward to our next Cancer Careers Day in spring 2023!

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MSNZ at the UCCH Retreat on August 19 and 20, 2022

On Friday and Saturday, young and advanced researchers of the University Cancer Center Hamburg met for the first time since 2019 in presence for the 14th UCCH Retreat, which this year took place in Bad Bramstedt to facilitate the participation of our colleagues from Kiel and Lübeck (and to save a long drive through the Hamburg city traffic or Elbtunnel :-)).

In a total of six "wet-lab" sessions as well as two sessions on the topic of "patient-centered research" - a topic that was integrated at the retreat for the first time and was very well received - more than 120 participants exchanged ideas on their research topics and received recognition for and feedback on the content of their projects. "I am particularly pleased with the very high quality of the projects presented, but also with the quality of the presentations, especially by the young researchers! It was a pleasure to listen to the young colleagues. Everyone's enthusiasm for their own project spilled over directly to the audience," said Dr. Inga Melzer, coordinator of the MSNZ, after the event. Many colleagues from the MSNZ HH were also present and gave insights into their diverse projects, which all deal with different aspects from the scientific area of dissemination and metastasis. During the evening program, many new acquaintances were made and plans were made for joint projects, the output of which may already be visible at the next retreat.

More information - also about the Hubertus Wald Junior Investigator Awards and Poster Prizes - can be found at: UKE - Universitäres Cancer Center Hamburg (UCCH) - News , one of the coveted awards went to our colleague Dr. Franziska Brauneck. Congratulations, dear Franz !
We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the success of this event and especially all participants and look forward to next year.

5.7.2022 UCC NORD CONNECT Grants 2022: call for applications

As part of the network of Comprehensive Cancer Centers (CCC) awarded by German Cancer Aid, the University Cancer Center Hamburg (UCCH) is planning a joint application as CCC NORD consortium with the University Cancer Center Schleswig Holstein for 2024.

In order to establish and initiate as many and good collaborations as possible in the run-up to this application, the CCC NORD is for the first time announcing the CONNECT (Cooperative NORD-Networking for Early Career Teams) Grants for early career teams from both sites. This initiative is supported by the Medical Faculties of the University of Lübeck and the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel as well as the Mildred Scheel Cancer Career Center (MSNZ) Hamburg, which is funded by the German Cancer Aid.

Find an appropriate partner (Medical or Clinician Scientist) from the respective other location (HH-Kiel or HH-Lübeck) and send us your joint project idea by September 20, 2022. The project idea should ideally be located in one of the research focus areas of UCCH (to be found under " Research ") and UCCSH . Epidemiological projects and projects in health services research are eligible to apply as well as molecular biology-translational projects. The maximum funding per project is € 50,000 (distributed between both sites) and the project duration should be from January to December 2023. Funding of your own position is excluded.

You can download the annoucement with all information and a template for your application here.

We are looking forward to your applications! If you need help with the application or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us!

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Do you ever feel alone in the academic world? Building a successful career in science, especially in an academic setting, can feel from time to time like you have to climb a mountain - with meager equipment and all on your own. But there is good news: help is available, and it is up to you to take advantage of it!

Mentoring can help you find your career path in science!
Mentoring is a learning relationship (for both the mentor and the mentee!) and can be a tremendous support when it comes to finding a path through the academic jungle that is right for you. Classic mentoring relationships are characterized by an experienced mentor providing support and advice from their own experience to a younger mentee, but there are many other ways in which mentoring can be useful.

We would like to invite you to our MSNZ online seminar with Annette Ehmler , coordinator of the mentoring program in Greifswald and board member of "Forum Mentoring" - the federal association for mentoring in science.You will gain insights into everything you need to know about mentoring in general and learn how to build a successful and satisfying mentoring relationship. In the second part of the seminar, Dr. Vajiheh Safavi-Rizi , research associate at the University of Leipzig and former mentee, will talk about her experiences in a structured mentoring program and together we will try to answer any questions you may have on this topic.

Join us for this exciting online event on April 28, 2022 at 5pm via Zoom and discover mentoring as a career development tool! To register, we welcome your email to ucch.science.info@uke.de .
We look forward to welcoming you next Thursday and ask that you feel free to pass along the info to interested colleagues as well! You can find a flyer here.
To participate in the meeting, please enter here :-) (Meeting-ID: 621 2054 9547 identification code: 15259559)

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On April 1 (no April Fool :-)) we cordially invite you, our young scientists, to our second Cancer Careers Day in cooperation with the UCCSH.

Following the suggestion of the participants of the last event, our overarching topic this time will be "University Careers". From 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. we will again offer an overview lecture on the topic, this time with the lawyer Katharina Helmig from the Deutscher Hochschulverband , who will give an overview of career paths at the university and medical faculties and answer your questions. Afterwards, we will discuss with panelists from different target positions at the university/medical faculties about their personal experiences on their career paths and you will have the opportunity to ask them what is on your mind!

As last time, the panelists will be kindly available for a short 1:1 exchange in breakout rooms at the end of the event.You will find more details on our flyer and by mail via the UCCH-Science mailing list (to sign up for the mailing list please write an email to ucch.science.info@uke.de ). So: stay tuned and spread the word :-)

We are looking forward to a lively participation and cordially invite all interested researchers (both scientists and physicians) at UCCH and UCCSH and beyond to this exciting event!

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On 7.3.2022 Dr. Katharina Jähn-Rickert, who is currently receiving funding in the line "Medical Scientist with external partner", gave birth to her second child! We are very happy for the parents and the "big" brother and send our best wishes. To ensure that the project can be continued and supported during her parental leave, we are providing Dr. Jähn-Rickert with a 50% TA position for 10 months. All the best!

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On February 10, 2022, starting at 1 p.m., the MSNZ will host its first Networking Symposium, where our MSNZ Fellows of the funding line "+External Partners" will introduce their research collaboration partners:ing from external institutions in the greater Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein area. Co-organizers are our Fellows Dr. Judith Niesen Dr. Marina Mutas and Dr. Katharina Jähn -Rickert. Experts from DESY, EMBL Hamburg, the Fraunhofer Institutes and TUHH will give us compact insights into their work and possible starting points for collaborations.

Afterwards, an exchange with the network partners and the MSNZ Fellows will be possible in breakout rooms to establish first contacts and to discuss possible joint activities. More information about the event and the access link can be found in the flyer . If possible, please register in advance at ucch.science.info@uke.de.
We look forward to a lively participation and cordially invite all researchers at UCCH and UCCSH to this exciting event!

The first joint Cancer Careers Day of the MSNZ Hamburg/UCCH and the University Cancer Center Schleswig Holstein took place on 19.11.2021. Starting at 1 pm, more than 90 interested young scientists and young physicians from Hamburg, Kiel and Lübeck had the opportunity to learn about career entry opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry in an excellent overview lecture by Dr. Stefan Langhammer (Astellas Pharma). In a subsequent lively discussion, young and experienced colleagues from various companies shared their experiences with the participants on topics like applications, targeted training and further education, mindset and everyday working life. The participants took advantage of the opportunity to ask many questions and then continued their personal discussions with the panelists in breakout rooms. Our subsequent evaluation showed a unified picture: "It was by far the most useful seminar on careers in science that I have attended. Congratulations to the organizers and speakers." (voice from the evaluation). Afterwards, many participants also took the opportunity to connect with the panelists on LinkedIn to network and ask further questions.

We are very happy about this positive reception and promise: The next Careers Day will certainly follow (probably in April 2022) and will certainly be at least as exciting! Many thanks to all colleagues and participants for a successful event!

The MSNZ Hamburg is entering its third active year of funding, a lot has happened since the beginning of 2020 and there are exciting prospects for the coming years! All those interested in the activities and future plans of the MSNZ are cordially invited to the UCCH Breakfast. On Friday, Feb. 4, 2022 at 9 a.m., Dr. Inga Melzer, Senior Coordinator of the MSNZ HH, will provide information on everything you need to know about research and career advancement at the MSNZ.If you are interested, you can join the webinar here (meeting number: 996 638 952).

The access data as well as up-to-date information about the UCCH Breakfasts , in which topics and work areas of the University Cancer Centers are presented, can also be obtained from Ms. Selda Güngör ( s.guengoer@uke.de )

On Thursday, January 27 at 5:00 p.m., Dr. Malik Alawi of the UKE Bioinformatics Core will give an online overview talk on "Bioinformatics Solutions for Medical Research", also pointing out support options at the UKE.

Bioinformatics has recently become indispensable for many medical and biological research areas. Mainly fueled by the rapid development of sequencing technologies, it is now possible to perform analyses that were considered unfeasible only a few years ago. The aim of this talk is to give an overview of bioinformatics solutions and application scenarios, especially in the fields of sequence data analysis, genomics, and integrated 'omics'-analysis. The audience will be introduced to methods that could advance their research projects and it will be shown how these methods can be successfully applied with the help of the UKE Bioinformatics Core. An overview will also be given of the resources provided by the UKE Bioinformatics Core, the topics it is currently working on most frequently, and the general form of collaboration with the unit. Algorithmic aspects of individual methods are not the subject of this talk.

To join the seminar, klick here Meeting-ID: 671 2904 0642 Kenncode: 96966701

On January 11, MSNZ long-term fellows who were not able to attend the first workshop on communication in August, met -together with four of our short-term CS- for one day to work on the topic of good communication with our trainer, Dr. Regina Pingel. Different communication types, styles and where to use them and raising "difficult" topics were some of the topics discussed and practised in the 8-hour workshop.

Despite all the adversities caused by the Corona pandemic, the MSNZ Hamburg was able to make great progress in 2021 and has grown both in terms of personnel and "content". We are pleased to be able to provide you with a clear annual review of our past activities and an outlook on the upcoming new year, which will again bring many exciting and new things. The MSNZ team wishes you an enjoyable read and a successful, healthy and happy New Year!

On November 29, 2021 starting at 3 pm, an MSNZ DE peer to peer meeting specifically for (Advanced) Clinician Scientists will take place. This format had emerged in the network meeting in August. Due to the success/good reception of the format, it has been requested by MSNZ DE fellows to repeat this format, preferably with more time for exchange between the sites. Medical Scientists from MSNZ and beyond, as well as other Clinician Scientists or medical students/doctoral fellows are also welcome to attend. You will receive the access link via email to msnz@uke.de . More peer to peer meetings for Medical Scientists and tandems/partner labs are also planned for the future. We are looking forward to a lively participation!

On November 16, 2021 we were able to offer our third workshop in the accompanying program for our future leaders. In the "inner circle of the MSNZ HH", 14 long-term sponsored fellows dealt this time with the topic "taking the lead". In a total of 8 hours of workshop time with a lot of helpful input from our coach and trainer Dr. Regina Pingel, a lot of interesting information on the topic was collected and exchanged, both frontally and, above all, in smaller team exercises and brainstorming sessions difficult situations and challenges were played out and techniques and approaches for one's own leadership style were learned. We look forward to seeing our future leaders in oncology in action and eagerly await the next workshop in spring!

Our fellow Dr. Katharina Jähn-Rickert, who is working in the field of osteology together with her external research partner Dr. Anton Davydok from the Helmholtz Center hereon (at DESY) to find out how the composition and quality of the surrounding bone structure affects metastasis and tumor progression, was recently interviewed for a podcast by Tesselle Development. Tesselle is a "consulting company" for scientists, where you can get coaching and book training among other things. In addition, Dr. Sandrine Soubes, who runs the site, offers a podcast in which she interviews scientists from various disciplines on specific topics ("research lives and cultures"). Katharina was interviewed on the topic "collaboration" and offers interesting insights into her "research life". Feel free to listen!

Collaborating away from the big egos — Tesselle Development

On October 29, 2021 Dr. Franziska Brauneck from our partner lab no. 4 (nanobodies/AML) gave birth to her first child. We are very happy with the young family, congratulate wholeheartedly and keep our fingers crossed for the easiest possible "baby time" :-) To support Dr. Brauneck during the first year of her daughter's life, we are providing her with a 50% TA position. All the best!

We proudly welcome four new Clinician Scientists into our program! Dr. med. Christine Nitschke (Surgery) will be working on tumoroid models to check for new biomarkers and treatment options together with Dr. Tabea Sturmheit from 2curex GmbH for the next two years. Dr. Fabian Knörr (Pediatric Hematology and Oncology) will investigate the composition of the tumor microenvironment and immune repertoire in pediatric ALK-positive anaplastic large cell lymphoma. He will be spending a large amount of his project time at our partner site, the UCCSH in Kiel in the labs of Prof. Wolfram Klapper and Prof. Monika Brüggemann. Dr. Annika Wefers (Neuropathology) whom we could luckily persuade to move to Hamburg from Heidelberg, will check out the histological, molecular and clinical characteristics of MYB/MYBL1-altered gliomas, a novel subclass of gliomas for which, to date, there are no targeted therapies available. And Dr. Michael Bockmayr (Pediatric Hematology and Oncology/Kinderkrebszentrum), recipient of the 2019 Hubertus Wald Award, will use morpho-molecular profiling and machine learning to characterize the liquorigenic seeding and identify metastatic risk factors in medulloblastoma. For this endeavour he will work together with Prof. Andreas Schlaefer at the Technical University Hamburg Harburg (TUHH; Medical Technology Science Systems) for the next three years.

We wish all of our new fellows good luck with their projects and will do our best to support them in achieving their career goals.

25./26.11.2020

First workshop "Systematic Review and Metaanalysis" with PD Dr. Levente Kriston a complete success!

On November 25th and 26th, the MSNZ Hamburg offered the first two-day workshop on "Systematic Review and Metaanalysis" at the request of our MSNZ fellows who conceived this fantastic idea! Due to the current corona measures, the workshop had to take place online, but this was no obstacle to a constructive cooperation. On the first day, the complex topic was introduced in shorter blocks with exercises, the second day was reserved for "brought along" questions of the participants, which were worked on together. The demand from potential participants was overwhelming. In addition to a large number of our grant recipients, Dr. Kriston, who himself works at the UKE in the Institute for Medical Psychology, was able to accept a large number of other participants from the UCCH (and yet there was a long waiting list). The feedback from the participants was consistently positive, so we will certainly offer this workshop regularly and again in 2021. We thank the German Cancer Aid for making this possible!

01.07.2020 Second partner laboratory takes up work

On July 1, 2020, the second partner laboratory funded by the MSNZ will take up its activities. Over the next three years, Dr. Simon Joosse (PhD, MAS, BASc) from the Institute of Tumor Biology and PD Dr. med. Katharina Prieske from the Department of Gynecology will work together on the question of how ovarian cancer develops, how and why metastases develop in some patients and, above all, will focus on the extent to which the cancer can mutate and genetically change under therapy/through therapy. The results of the project should above all serve to find new treatment options, also with regard to metastasis, but also to prevent metastasis and to better stratify patients into individual treatment regimens.We are looking forward to a productive funding period !