DZL Scientists honored at 55th DGP Congress

DZL Scientists win clinical and basic research awards at the 55th DGP Congress in Bremen.

DZL scientists captured top honors in both basic and clinical research at the 55th Annual Congress of the German Respiratory Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Pneumologie und Beatmungsmedizine e.V., DGP).  This year’s prize for outstanding work in basic science was awarded to Dr. Dorothea Peters of the University of Giessen and Marburg Lung Center, Excellence Cluster Cardiopulmonary System, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen.  She won the award for her 2014 PNAS paper entitled “TGF-β directs trafficking of the epithelial sodium channel ENaC which has implications for ion and fluid transport in acute lung injury”.  The paper describes a unique TGF- β driven signaling pathway involved in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) which may open doors to new therapeutic options for the treatment of ARDS.  Contributing to the work were several DZL investigators including authors from both the UGMLC and CPC-M DZL centers.

The DGP Prize for outstanding work in clinical research was shared this year by two scientists from the DZL BREATH Center, Sven Michel of the Hannover Medical School and Vanessa Neuhaus from the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicolgy and Experimental Medicine, Hannover.  The Michel paper, “Farm exposure and time trends in early childhood may influence DNA methylation genes related to asthma and allergy” published in Allergy found that DNA methylation patterns in asthma candidate genes change in early childhood and may be influenced by farm exposure.  The work included authors from both the BREATH and CPC-M DZL Centers.  Neuhaus received her prize for work on a new influenza vaccine that can be administered via inhalation.  The paper, “Functional Testing of an Inhalable Nanoparticle Based Influenza Vaccine Using a Human Precision Cut Lung Slice Technique” was published in PLoS One and included authors from both the BREATH and ARCN DZL centers.