Today we celebrate a big milestone for our group #EMIL at DKFZ Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum:
We are thrilled to be among the recipients of an ERC Starting Grant from European Research Council (ERC) #ERCStG! In the #METABAC project, we will explore how gut bacteria contribute to colorectal cancer metastasis formation.
Congratulations to all other groups who got an #ERCStG today, and a big thank you to the people who are behind this success for our young lab:
1. The DKFZ Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum and DKFZ Infection&Immunology leadership for their vision to support our group in our ERC plans before I was eligible to apply for ERC funding (due to PhD date). Ursula Weyrich, Michael Baumann, Michael Platten, Tim Waterboer, Duncan Odom and most importantly Eran Elinav!
2. The amazing DKFZ grant office team Kentner Susan, Simone Hauber, Aynur Kaya Copur & Johannes Kapeller for 1.5 years of input to run pilot experiments with amazing institute support, refine the project, and get the proposal in shape (great course by Ringrose Leonie #sciencekitchen & continuous training by Duncan Odom and others).
3. Friends & colleagues for their input. From Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft rounds to old friends from the Clevers lab (Kai Kretzschmar), senior DKFZ faculty Andreas Trumpp, Hellmut Augustin, Angelika Riemer, Christoph Plass, to recent ERC awardees Julio Saez Rodriguez, Angelika Feldmann, Maria Zimmermann-Kogadeeva, Michael Zimmermann, Felix J. Hartmann, PhD, Moritz Mall labs and experts on key aspects of this proposal Elisabeth Letellier, Rene Jackstadt & Nassos Typas.
4. The referees and panel members of LS4, whose comments have really sharpened our plans once more.
5. The patients and patient advocates who contribute valuable perspectives to our research and their families.
6. Our clinical partners at Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg (UKHD), Universitätsmedizin Mannheim, Uniklinik Ulm, and National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg who make our translational efforts possible in the first place and who add a lot of perspective to the research we’re planning to do together. Christoph Kahlert, Nuh Rahbari, Alex Fichtner, Markus Großmüller, Moritz Niesert, Ronald Koschny, Cyrill Wehling, and Patrick Michl.
7. Our scientific collaborators in the #METABAC project, especially Rene Jackstadt, Georg Zeller, Eran Elinav, Mathias Heikenwaelder, Michael Zimmermann.
8. The amazingly talented & driven bunch of people in the picture, who have started to lay the foundation for systematic and cutting edge investigations in #METABAC! Special thanks to Kyanna Ouyang, Marius Mathies, Yannick Throm, Nimisha Khurana, and Luisa Siegert for the bacterial culturing work at the core of our project. And also the functional work pioneers Lena Schorr, Nina Stinchcombe and Yeseul Lee.
We will recruit for different positions in the next months – watch this channel for updates if you want to join the #METABAC team!
