CCR Lecture Series & Impromptu Seminars
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Liang Liang (OBGYN)
Medical College of Wisconsin, USA
"Unveiling the Molecular Clock of Pregnancy through Longitudinal Metabolomic Profiling"
Venue: CCR Lecture Hall, Borschkegasse 8a
Date: Monday, March 31st 2025, 16:00
Host: Thomas Vogl
Unveiling the Molecular Clock of Pregnancy through Longitudinal Metabolomic Profiling
Pregnancy is a dynamic biological process, yet one in four to five women experiences complications, many of which remain unpredictable and untreatable, posing risks to both mother and child. In this talk, Dr. Liang will present how metabolomics from maternal blood and urine samples - coupled with machine learning - enables the discovery of molecular signatures that define the “molecular clock” of pregnancy. By leveraging large-scale omics profiling, we aim to develop predictive models for maternal complications and identify novel therapeutic targets. This approach paves the way for precision medicine in maternal health, transforming early discovery to potential diagnosis and intervention strategies.
About the speaker:
Liang Liang, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin, specializing in maternal-infant health and precision medicine. With extensive experience in multi-omics research, she has led projects spanning metabolomics, microbiome studies, and computational biomarker discovery for pregnancy-related conditions. She has collaborated with leading institutions worldwide and secured funding from organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the NIH. In addition to her research, she plays an active leadership role in scientific communities, including the Gordon Research Conferences. Her work has been featured in high-impact journals such as Cell and Nature, as well as on the covers of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory publications.
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Guangbo (Bill) Chen
Medical College of Wisconsin, USA
"Rationale design of vaccine adjuvant informed by human cohort and organoid data"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Friday, March 28th 2025, 11:00
Host: Thomas Vogl
Rationale design of vaccine adjuvant informed by human cohort and organoid data
The antibody titer induced by a vaccine varies among humans. We hypothesize that certain cytokines' pre-vaccination (VAX) serum abundances may regulate the post-VAX response.
We pooled data (cytokine N=66) from 5 different flu vaccine cohorts in 5 seasons (sample N=664, received Inactivated Influenza Vaccine/IIV). In a group vulnerable to influenza infection (with low pre-VAX antibodies), the meta-analysis identifies a significant correlation between baseline/Day 0 serum IL18, CXCL1, and IFN-β concentration and the antibody response on Day 28. However, no correlation was found in the group with high pre-VAX antibodies.
Beyond correlation, we examined the vaccine-adjuvant functionality of cytokines in tonsil and spleen organoids derived from human subjects. A screen identifies numerous cytokines capable of adjuvating the inactivated vaccine, including multiple Type I IFNs (α,β,ω) and IL-21, but not IFN-r or its effector IL-18. Supplementing a single cytokine, IFN-β, can recapitulate the live vaccine-specific cytokine activation program and rescue the antibody induction deficiency of the inactivated vaccine. mRNA lipid nanoparticle is known to induce both type I IFNs and IL-21. In mice model vaccinated by human influenza strains, we found that non antigen-coding mRNA lipid nanoparticles can adjuvate heterologous antibody production to avian flu strains. IL-21 mRNA LNP further enhances the quantity and breadth of antibody responses. Thus, mRNA LNP can function as a programmable adjuvant.
About the speaker:
Guangbo (Bill) Chen, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at the Department of ObGyn and the Center for Immunology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. His research focuses on reconstituting immune responses using spleen tissue from transplant organ donors to inform vaccine and immunotherapy design. Dr. Chen trained at Stanford University and the Stowers Institute for Medical Research and has received multiple prestigious awards, including the Kaluza Prize and an LSRF Fellowship. His work has been featured in Nature, Cell, and PNAS, and he has presented at leading immunology and oncology conferences worldwide.
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Zaritza Petrova
Yale University, USA
"Understanding how kinase domain interactions contribute to dimerization and activation of receptor tyrosine kinases"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, March 10th 2025, 13:00
Host: Maria Sibilia
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Hind Medyouf
Georg-Speyer-Haus
"Harnessing the Tumor microenvironment to Enable Cancer Control"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, December 2nd 2024, 13:00
Host: Juliane Winkler
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Stefanie K. Wculek
IRB Barcelona, Spain
"Novel functions of dendritic cells to induce anti-cancer immune memory and prevent cancer relapse"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, December 2nd 2024, 10:00
Host: Maria Sibilia
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Arno Bourgonje
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York
"Characterization of pre-diagnostic antibody repertoires in inflammatory bowel disease"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Wednesday, October 16th 2024, 10:00
Host: Thomas Vogl
CCR Lecture Series
Christian Schürch
University of Tübingen
"Deconstructing Immune Mechanisms, Therapy Responses and Patient Outcomes by Highly Multiplexed Tissue Imaging"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, October 7th 2024, 13:00
Host: Iros Barozzi
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Ravid Straussman
Weizmann Institute of Science
"The intra-tumor microbiome and its effects on response to therapy"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, September 2nd 2024, 13:00
Host: Thomas Vogl
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Alexander Kurilshikov
Department of Genetics
University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG)
"Genetic and environmental factors influencing the human microbiome"
Venue: CCR Lecture Hall, Borschkegasse 8a
Date: Thursday, August 8th 2024, 10:00
Host: Thomas Vogl
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Lina Schmidt
Institute for Molecular Medicine
RWTH Aachen University
"Mapping Plasma Cell Distribution and Characteristics in Gnotobiotic Mice"
Venue: CCR Container, Borschkegasse 8a
Date: Thursday, July 4th 2024, 15:00
Host: Thomas Vogl
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Carmen Abate
University of Bari Aldo Moro
"A journey into the sigma receptors' world: Focus on sigma-1 receptor, its ligands and their therapeutic potentials"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Wednesday, July 3rd 2024, 12:30
Host: Petra Heffeter
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Colinda Scheele
VIB-KU Leuven
Center for Cancer Biology
"Tracking the origin of cancer in space and time"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Friday, June 14th 2024, 14:30
Host: Gergely Szakacs
CCR Lecture Series
Kjetil Taskén
Oslo University Hospital
Institute for Cancer Research
"Tumor Immune Evasion Mechanisms, Immune Regulation and Regulatory T cells"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, June 10th 2024, 13:00
Host: Petra Heffeter
CCR Lecture Series
Isaac P. Witz
Tel Aviv University
"The Janus-Faced Cancer Ecosystem – The Case of Brain Metastasizing Melanoma Cells"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Friday, June 7th 2024, 10:30
Host: Walter Berger, Maria Sibilia
Patronage: Vice Rector Michaela Fritz
CCR Lecture Series
Leeat Keren
Weizmann Institute of Science
"Life is better in color – multiplexed imaging for next generation pathology"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, May 27th 2024, 13:00
Host: Juliane Winkler
CCR Lecture Series
Leila Akkari
Netherlands Cancer Institute
"Dissecting and Rewiring Immune Cell Heterogeneity in the Cancer Ecosystem: Myeloid Cells at Play"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, April 29th 2024, 13:00
Host: Juliane Winkler
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Hassan Fazilaty
Department of Molecular Life Sciences,
University of Zurich
"Oncoembryology: Characterization of Ectopic Embryonic Genetic Programs in Colon Cancer for Precision Targeting"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, April 22nd 2024, 15:00
Host: Maria Sibilia
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Joseph Schlessinger
Yale School Of Medicine
Cancer Biology Institute
"Cell Signaling By Receptor Tyrosine Kinases: From Basic Principles To Cancer Therapies"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, March 18th 2024, 15:00
Host: Maria Sibilia
CCR Lecture Series
Leif S Ludwig
Max Delbrück Center
"Clonal Dynamics And Mitochondrial Genetics Via The Lens Of Single-Cell Multi-Omics"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, March 11th 2024, 13:00
Host: Bernhard Englinger
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Carlos Reyna
Oncology Data Science Basel group Novartis (NIBR)
"Computational Tools for Inferring Genetic Parameters from Noisy Sequesncing Data"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, February 19th 2024, 09:30
Host: Thomas Vogl
CCR Lecture Series
Florian Greten
Institute for Tumor Biology and Experimental Therapy, Georg Speyer Haus
"Cell Plasticity in Colorectal Carcinogenesis and Therapy"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Friday, February 2nd 2024, 13:00
Host: Maria Sibilia
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Saverio Tardito
Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute
"Rethinking Our Approach To Cancer Metabolism To Deliver Patient Benefit"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, January 29th 2024, 10:00
Host: Maria Sibilia
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Marah Runtsch
Medical University Graz
"Unraveling Myeloid Cell Metabolism in Cancer and Inflammation"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, January 22nd 2024, 10:00
Host: Maria Sibilia
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Alexandra (Sasha) Zhernakova
Professor of genome and exposome
University Medical Center Groningen
"Host and environmental factors shaping the gut microbiome"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Thursday, January 18th, 2024, 10:15
Host: Thomas Vogl
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Eleni M. Tomazou
St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (CCRI)
"Fusion driven sarcomas: From epigenetic profiling to developmental disease models"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, January 15th, 2024, 13:00
Host: Maria Sibilia
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Alexis Lomakin
Institute for Pathobiochemistry & Genetics,
Medical University of Vienna
"How does 'form-follows-function' in therapy-induced cancer cell senescence?"
Venue: CCR Lecture Hall, Borschkegasse 8a
Date: Friday, November 3rd 2023, 14:00
Host: Iros Barozzi
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Chris McGinnis
Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy Scholar,
Cancer Research Institute, Stanford University
"Interrogating immunomodulation for anti-metastatic immunotherapy"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, September 25th 2023, 13:00
Host: Juliane Winkler
CCR Lecture Series
Juha Klefström
Finnish Cancer Institute,
Helsinki University Hospital & University of Helsinki
"Activating resident tumor immunity through MYC-directed synthetic lethal strategies"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, September 18th 2023, 11:00
Host: Juliane Winkler
CCR Lecture Series
Nicholas McGranahan
Cancer Institute, University College London, UK
"Cancer Evolution Beyond the Genome"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, September 16th 2023, 11:00
Host: Juliane Winkler
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Peter Faller
Professor of Chemistry (University of Strasbourg)
and group leader at the Institute of Chemistry
"Cu-complexes as anticancer compounds: Insights in the reactivity with thiols, O2 and the production of reactive oxygen species"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Friday, August 25th 2023, 13:00
Host: Petra Heffeter
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Sergio Andreu Sánchez
PhD.student, Department Genetics/Pediatrics,
University Medical Center Groningen
"Phage display sequencing reveals that genetic, enviromental, and intrinsic factors influence variation of human antibody epitope repertoire"
Venue: CCR Lecture Hall, Borschkegasse 8a
Date: Monday, July 24th 2023, 15.00
Host: Thomas Vogl
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Wei-Chuan Shih
Cullen Professor Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of Houston
"Nanobiophotonic liquid biopsy"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Friday, June 23th 2023, 11:00
Host: Klaus Holzmann
CCR Lecture Series
Thomas Brunner
Biochemical Pharmacology
Dept. of Biology, University of Konstanz, Germany
"How tumor-autonomous synthesis of immunospressive glucocorticoids contributes to immune evasion in colorectal and lung cancer"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Monday, June 19th 2023, 13:30
Host: Maria Sibilia
CCR Lecture Series
Balázs Györffy
Department of Bioinformatics,
Semmelweis University, Hungary
"Utilizing transcriptomic data to uncover robust cancer biomarkers"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Tuesday, May 16th 2023, 13:00
Host: Gergely Szakacs
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Douglas Hanahan
Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
& Agora Translational Cancer Research Center, Lausanne
"Elucidating and abrogating immunosuppressive mechanisms embodied in the tumor microenvironment"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Thursday, May 04th 2023, 16:00
Host: Maria Sibilia & Erwin Wagner
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Dimitris Tsiantoulas
Medical University of Vienna
Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
"APRIL, a major regulator of cardiovascular diseases"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Thursday, April 20th 2023, 14.00
Host: Thomas Vogl
CCR Impromtu Seminar
Talya Dayton
EMBL Barcelona
“Decoding neuroendocrine cancers: insights into initiation, progression, and therapeutic vulnerabilities from human organoid models"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Tuesday, March 24th 2023, 10:00
Host: Juliane Winkler
CCR Lecture Series
András Nagy
Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute
"Making the Unsafe Safe: Global Source for Off-the-Shelf Therapeutic Cell Products"
Venue: Lecture Hall B1, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Friday, February 3rd 2023, 13.00
Host: Gergely Szakacs
CCR Lecture Series
Andreas Reinisch
Medical University Graz
"Genome engineering of hematopoietic stem cells to model clonal hematopoiesis and myeloid malignancies"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Friday, November 18th 2022, 11:00
Host: Dietmar Herndler-Brandstetter
CCR Lecture Series
Mazda Jenab
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
"Diet, Lifestyle and Metabolic Dysfunction in Colorectal Cancer Development"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Friday, October 28th 2022, 11:00
Host: Andrea Gsur
CCR Impromptu Seminar
Arno R. Bourgonje
University of Groningen, The Netherlands
"Multimodal discovery of biomarker signatures for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and beyond"
Venue: Lecture Hall B2, Borschkegasse 4a
Date: Friday, October 07th 2022, 15:00
Host: Thomas Vogl