Medical student Gizem Güneş Günsel has won the 2022 Dissertation Award of the German Lung Foundation e.V. in the field of basic science. She will receive prize money of 1500 euros and will be allowed to present her work in front of a large audience at the main congress of the DGP in Leipzig in May 2022.
The prize was awarded at the Autumn Meeting Cell Biology of the German Society for Pneumology and Respiratory Medicine (DGP) at the DZL site Hannover (BREATH).
Enriched enzyme in the lung tissue of COPD patients
Günsel investigated the role of the enzyme protein arginine methyltransferase (PRMT7) as an epigenetic factor in the progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at the DZL site CPC-M in Munich. She and her colleagues discovered that PRMT7 is increased in lung tissue and localized in macrophages in patients with COPD. The more PRMT7 was enriched, the more alveolar cells died and the more severe the disease. Alveolar cells are specialized cells that line the alveoli.
Further information:
Title of award-winning dissertation: Role of PRMT7 in the recruitment of monocyte-derived macrophages into lung tissue and COPD pathogenesis.
To learn more about this research area at the DZL Munich site, click here:
https://www.helmholtz-munich.de/lhi/highlighted-publication/news-detail/article/50401/index.html
