On February 5, 2018, the Chica and Heinz Schaller Research Award were presented to HI-STEM Group Leader Marieke Essers during the official award ceremony at Heidelberg University. She received the award for her pioneering work on hematopoietic stem cells and their activation during stress conditions. The award is endowed with 100,000 euros. Prof. Petra Boukamp, a researcher at the Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine and former division head at the DKFZ, emphasized during her laudation, how Marieke, as a successful scientist and team leader made important contributions to the elucidation of stem cell functions in hematopoiesis and the role of inflammatory processes on them.

Marieke, who has been a group leader at HI-STEM since 2009, especially thanked the Dietmar-Hopp-Foundation for the generous support of the research carried out at HI-STEM, which is run as a public-private partnership between the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the foundation.

The second award was presented to Dr. Theodore Alexandrov from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) for his pioneering work in metabolome research.

Further Information:

·         Press Release of German Cancer Resarch Center

·         Website of the Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation

·         Research Group Marieke Essers: Stress-induced Activation of Hematopoietic Stem Cells

  • CHS Preis 01
    The awardees Theodore Alexandrov and Marieke Essers together with the representative of the Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation and the laudators. From left to right: Rohini Kuner, Karoly Nikolich, Theodore Alexandrov, Marieke Essers, Hans-Georg Kräusslich, Petra Boukamp, Rüdiger Hell (Photo:Philipp Rothe)
  • CHS Preis 03
    The management board of the DKFZ, Prof. Michael Baumann (left) and Prof. Josef Puchta (right) also congratulated the awardees. (Photo:Philipp Rothe)

In the publication, which appeared online at Nature.comon January 17, 2018, the regulation of Myc by a modular gene enhancer in the normal hematopoietic system and in leukemia is described. The study, which was driven forward by Carsten Bahr, PhD Student at DKFZ and HI-STEM, Lisa von Paleske, former PhD student and Postdoc in the Trumpp lab and Veli Uslu from the group of François Spitz at EMBL, shows that the expression of the Myc oncogene is determined by a distant section of DNA that contains a cluster of transcriptional enhancers. In leukemia stem cells this cluster, which was named BENC for Blood Enhancer Cluster, is deregulated, which affects Myc activity and thereby accelerates cancer growth. Furthermore, it could be shown that BENC activity correlates with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patient survival.

Further Reading:

·         Carsten Bahr*, Lisa von Paleske*, Veli V. Uslu*, Silvia Remeseiro, Naoya Takayama, Stanley W. Ng, Alex Murison, Katja Langenfeld, Massimo Petretich, Roberta Scognamiglio, Petra Zeisberger, Amelie Benk, Ido Amit, Peter W. Zandstra, Mathieu Lupien, John E. Dick, Andreas Trumpp@ and François Spitz@: A cluster of distal Myc enhancers regulates normal and leukaemic haematopoietic stem cell hierarchies. Nature 2018, DOI: 10.1038/nature25193
*: shared first authorship, @: joint corresponding authorship

·         DKFZ Press Release

Graphical abstract describing the function of BENC in normal haematopoesis and in Leukemia.

In the new paper published online at nature.com on November 8, we describe how high levels of the BCAT1 enzyme in leukemia stem can lead to DNA hypermethylation and detrimental effects in cancer cells. The work, which is based on a close cooperation with group of Bernhard Radlwimmer also at the DKFZ, opens up new options for therapy via a blockade of BCAT1. Within HI-STEM, the PhD Students Simon Raffel and Mattia Falcone are together with Niclas Kneisel from the Radlwimmer team the first authors of this study.

Further Reading:

·         Read the paper online at Nature.com:
Raffel, S., Falcone, M., Kneisel, N., Hansson, J., Wang, W., Lutz, C., Bullinger, L., Poschet, G., Nonnenmacher, Y., Barnert, A., Bahr, C., Zeisberger, P., Przybylla, A., Sohn, M., Tönjes, M., Erez, A., Adler, L., Jensen, P., Scholl, C., Fröhling, S., Cocciardi, S., Wuchter, P., Thiede, C., Flörcken, A., Westermann, J., Ehninger, G., Lichter, P., Hiller, K., Hell, R., Herrmann, C., Ho, A.D., Krijgsveld, J., Radlwimmer, B., & Trumpp, A. (2017). BCAT1 restrictsαKG levels in AML stem cells leading to IDHmut-like DNA hypermethylation. Nature, advance online publication. doi: 10.1038/nature24294

·         DKFZ Press Release (English/ Deutsch)

 

Blood cancer is initiated by leukemic stem cells characterized by a specific protein expression pattern.

HI-STEM Mini-Symposium on Normal and Malignant Hematopoietic Stem Cells on August 28
 
The topic of the symposium will be normal and malignant hematopoietic stem cells, and there will be three talks of 30 minutes each from the following international speakers:
 
Dr. Steven Sykes, Fox Chase Comprehensive Cancer Center, Philadelphia, USA
“Mitochondrial redox biology: a therapeutic vulnerability in leukemia.”
 
Dr. Marie-Dominique Filippi, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, USA.
“Hematopoietic stem cell regeneration; it’s all about the mitochondria.”
 
Dr. Steven Lane, Queensland Institute for Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia.
"The role of Dnmt3a in advanced myeloproliferative neoplasm."
 
The symposium will take place on Monday August 28th at 3pm in the ZMBH, ground floor seminar room (Im Neuenheimer Feld 282).
 
For questions or contact to the speakers, please contact Dr. Michael D. Milsom (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).
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  7. Andreas Trumpp featured in GSCN Video Clip on Stem Cell Research

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