Dr. Ruzhica Bogeska has been selected to give a talk at the European School of Hematology’s 3rd Scientific Workshop on "The Hematological Microenvironment and its Therapeutic Targeting", which will be held at the Francis Crick Institute in London on February 24-26th 2019. The Workshop features talks from internationally renowned experts in normal and malignant hematology and will be a great opportunity for Ruzhica to showcase her work on the impact of inflammatory stress on hematopoietic stem cell function.

Further details at www.esh.org/conference/3rd-scientific-workshop-tumour-microenvironment-in-the-haematological-malignancies-and-its-therapeutic-targeting/

Congratulations to Sina Stäble on being awarded a talk at the forthcoming annual conference of the German Stem Cell Network, which will take place in September.

Ms. Stäbles abstract titled "Unidirectional and progressive DNA methylation changes define hematopoietic lineage commitment" has been selected for an oral presentation at the 6th GSCN Conference in Heidelberg (19.-21.9.2018), Session Computational Stem Cell Biology on Wednesday, 19 Sept. 14:30 - 16:00 h.

Further details at http://www.gscn.org/conferences/2018/home.aspx

Julius was selected to present at the International Behr-Symposium on Stem Cells and Cancer (Heidelberg, Sept. 16-19), which is organized by HI-STEM.

Further details at www.scc2018.de

Congratulations to Julius Gräsel, who has just been awarded an oral presentation at the 30th Annual International Scientific Symposium of the Fanconi Anemia Research Foundation, which will take place in Newport Beach California in September. Based on the evaluation of Julius’ submitted abstract, his travel costs will be reimbursed by the Research Foundation.

Congratulations to Ruzhica Bogeska, whose abstract has been selected for oral presentation at the Basel Stem Cell Meeting, “Stem cell dynamics throughout life: from development to the adult”. The meeting will take place in August in Basel.

Big congratulations to Sina Stäble, who was awarded a DKFZ/Weizmann Institute Cancer TRAX PhD-to Postdoc Fellowship. The award will fund an additional two year’s of research for Sina, as she continues to work on a combined project between the Division of Experimental Hematology and the Division of Epigenomics and Cancer Risk Factors, co-supervised by Mick and Daniel Lipka. The Fellowship will also fund a six month research visit to the laboratory of Amos Tanay, at the Weizmann Institute in Israel.

Congratulations to Jeyan Jeyarajan, who has been awarded a fellowship from the DKFZ Helmholtz International Graduate School to fund the duration of her research studies within the group.

The Division of Experimental Hematology, has just been awarded a four year project grant as part of the third renewal of the SFB873 Collaborative Research Centre on Stem Cell Biology. The funding mechanism from the DFG, supports a Heidelberg-based consortium focussed on studying the maintenance and differentiation of stem cells in development and disease. The project grant is a direct collaboration between the Division of Experimental Hematology and the Stress-Induced Activation of Hematopoietic Stem Cells Research Group, headed by Dr. Marieke Essers, which will start in July 2018.

Congratulations to Marleen Büchler, who has been awarded a fellowship from the DKFZ Helmholtz International Graduate School to fund the duration of her research studies within the group.

Classically, stem and progenitor populations have been considered discrete homogeneous populations. However, recent technological advances have revealed significant hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) heterogeneity, with evidence for early HSC lineage segregation and the presence of lineage-biased HSCs and lineage-restricted progenitors within the HSC compartment. These and other findings challenge many aspects of the classical view of HSC biology.

In our recent review in Cell Stem Cell, we analyse the most recent findings regarding the causes and consequences of HSC heterogeneity, discuss their far-reaching implications, and suggest that so-called continuum-based models may help consolidate apparently divergent experimental observations in this field.

Read more:

• Haas, S., Trumpp, A., & Milsom, M.D. (2018). Causes and Consequences of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Heterogeneity. Cell Stem Cell, 22(5), 627-638. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2018.04.003
• Direct Access to the article (valid until June 22, 2018): https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1W~i~6tu0CU9VO

The Division has recently successfully renewed its project funding from the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung to study the aetiology of bone marrow failure in Fanconi anemia. The additional one year of funding will mean that the foundation will have supported this research project for a duration of three years

As of January 2018, Dr. Mick Milsom has joined the Editorial Board of Blood, the official journal of the American Society for Hematology (ASH).

Dr. Mick Milsom has joined the Scientific Editorial Board of the journal HemaSphere, the newly launched official journal of the European Hematology Association.

The Division of Experimental Hematology has been awarded project funding as part of a Helmholtz Association-wide call for funding on future topics relating to health. The consortium is focussed on the topic of Ageing and Metabolic Programming (AMPro) and the funding period will run for three years.

The Division of Experimental Hematology has been awarded a one year project grant from the MPN Research Foundation to study the effects of interferon-alpha on MPN stem cells.

The Division of Experimental Hematology formed part of a multi-center consortium that successfully applied for a three year funding program from the DFG, to study aging-associated epigenetic as a therapeutic target in acute myeloid leukemia. The Division’s role in the Forschergruppe will be to investigate epigenetic remodelling and clonal selection in a murine model of accelerated hematopoietic stem cell aging, and will be carried out in collaboration with Dr. Daniel Lipka from the Divison of Epigenomics and Cancer Risk Factors.

The Division of Experimental Hematology has been awarded a DKFZ-MOST Cooperation in Cancer Research Project Grant in order to fund collaborative research between the Division and the group of Roi Gazit at Ben-Gurion University in Israel.

In collaboration with the group of Daniel Lipka, in the Division of Epigenomics and Cancer Risk Factors, the Division has been awarded a Project Grant from the Deutsche Krebshilfe to study epigenetic plasticity in pre-leukemic hematopoiesis. March 2017.

Congratulations to Dr. Natasha Anstee, who has been awarded a DKFZ Postdoctoral Fellowship, to fund her work within the group.

Dr. Michael Milsom was recently awarded the 2016 Fanconi Anemia Research Fund’s David B. Frohnmeyer Early Investigator Award.  The award is given to independent investigators of high accomplishment within 10 years of starting their own group. Dr. Milsom is the second recipient of this award, which was established in 2015 in memory of David Frohnmayer, former Attorney General of the US state of Oregon, President of the University of Oregon, and founder of the Fanconi Anemia Research Foundation.

Dr. Milsom received this award in light of his pioneering work on the roles of DNA damage and Fanconi anemia signaling pathway function in governing the attrition of hematopoietic stem cells. Dr. Ray Monnat, Chair of the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund Scientific Advisory Board commented that “This is a topic of high, and growing, interest both within the Fanconi anemia community and experimental hematology in general.”