Science is all about continuously expanding your knowledge. This in mind our head of department was motivated to meet up with other eye research groups from Gießen and Marburg to learn from eachothers research.
Who was part of this meeting? We met up with the research groups of Moritz Lindner (University Marburg), Knut Stieger (University Gießen) and Heidrun Deissler (University Gießen). Knut Stieger and his group members were kind enough to invite us to their facility and host the meeting - providing us with great cake, coffee and snacks too ;).
The meeting was composed of a short introduction round followed by two minute impluse talks by each group member to get a broad knowledge about what subject everyone is researching. The main topics were, although all of course focussed on the eye, very different between all groups. The Stieger Lab is interested in retinal gentherapies with focus on ABCA4, USH2A and EYS genes and the establishment of in vitro porcine retinal explant culturing. Moritz Lindner and his members focus on light-dependent signalling processes and their role in disease. Heidrun Deisslers model of research are immortalized bovine retinal endothelial cells and she investigates the influence of anti-VEGF peptides on the retinal endothelium.
All groups work in very different fields of technique. This gives us a great base for potential collaborations!
After Knut Stieger gave a short introduction round to their new laboratoris everyone enjoyed a slice of pizza together while discussing science and future collaborations.
We are looking forward to meeting with the eye research groups of Gießen and Marburg again soon :)
Hannah