The German society of cardiology (DGK) awarded Luisa Gündel the Otto-Hess scholarship for the execution of her MD thesis. The Otto-Hess scholarship supports excellent MD research projects.

Paula Vaccarello won the poster price at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the German Society of Pharmacology and Toxicology for her Poster on "MicroRNA-21 as a potential therapeutic target in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis".

Deepak Ramanujam and Anna Patricia Schön from the IPT have hitherto discovered a previously unknown molecular function of microRNA-21 (miR-21) that promotes fibrosis through its action in macrophages. This study suggests that macrophages hold promise as target cells for RNA-based therapy against miR-21. These findings have recently been published in the #1 Cardiovascular Journal Circulation.

Inhalation spray agains pulmonary fibrosis after COVID-19 

Patients who have had Covid-19 often suffer from reduced lung function for a long time afterwards. One cause of this is scarring of the lung tissue, known as pulmonary fibrosis. A small endogenous RNA molecule, microRNA, is suspected of driving this disease process. Synthetically produced inhibitors (anti-miR oligonucleotides) that neutralize microRNA would be a promising therapeutic strategy. However, when administered intravenously, the drug often does not reach the cells of the organ in question. In the case of the lung, the affected cells can be reached directly by inhalation.
The aim of the "Anti-miR against Pulmonary Fibrosis" project, headed by Stefan Engelhardt, Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at TUM, is to develop an inhalation method with the project partner Isar Bioscience GmbH, with which locally high drug concentrations can be achieved in the lungs. This should prevent the development of pulmonary fibrosis as a consequence of covid-19 disease.

In a collaborative effort, Rabea Hinkel (MRI TUM) and Deepak Ramanujan from the IPT successfully demonstrated the efficacy of synthetic inhibitors of microRNA miR-21 in a pig model for myocardial ischemia. Recapitulating the situation in human patients where, after myocardial infarction, dysregulation of microRNAs contributes to pathologic cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis, they showed that inhibition of miR-21 significantly ameliorates the phenotype. Their publication in JACC, entitled  „AntimiR-21 Prevents Myocardial Dysfunction in a Pig Model of Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury“, was selected as the Paper of the Month by the German center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK).

Christina Beck won a poster price at the 2020 Annual Meeting of the German Society of Pharmacology and Toxicology for her Poster on "Inhibition of miR-21 mediates cardioprotection by preferential target regulation in non-myocytes".

Congratulations to Anna Patricia Schön for receiving the 1st place of the Otto-Hess poster price 2019 and to Christina Beck for winning the 1st place Hans-Jürgen-Bretschneider poster prize 2019 awarded by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kardiologie.

The German Research foundation has approved funding for a new collaborative research center ("Sonderforschungsbereich", short "SFB") at the behest of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Goethe University Frankfurt and other partners. Over the next four years, the 30-partner consortium will investigate the role of non-coding RNAs in the cardiovascular system and will receive funding around 11 million euros of this purpose. 

MD student Paula Uibel has been awarded the Otto-Hess scholarship for 2019. The Otto-Hess scholarship awarded by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Herz- und Kreislaufforschung (DKG) supports excellent MD research projects

Christina Beck won one out of three poster prices at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the German Society of Pharmacology and Toxicology for her Poster on "Argonaute immunoprecipitation and RNA sequencing to identify the targets of microRNAs-21 and -29 in the mammalian heart"

Antonio Sarikas, group leader at the IPT since 2009 has accepted an offer by the Medical University of Salzburg (Austria) as Chair of Pharmacology and Toxicology. He starts January 2019 and we are actively looking for a successor.

Karin Ziegler has been awarded the 2018 DGK stipend for her project on "Characerization of the symathetic control of cardiac immune cells". 

Congratulation to Anna Patricia Schön for receiving the Segnitz-Ackermann price awarded by the Deutsche Stiftung für Herzforschung!

The award ceremony was at the DGK Basic science meeting in October 2018 in Berlin.

Quelle: "DGK/Stefan Erhard"

Congrats to Karin Ziegler on winning the first place of the Otto-Hess-Poster price! 

She received the award for the best poster presentation in the Otto-Hess-Poster session at the 83th annual meeting of the German Cardiac Society in Mannheim.

Quelle: "DGK/Thomas Hauss"