MyoGrad News

As of 22 February 2016, the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) has been home to the newly created Stiftung Gisela Krebs (SGK), a foundation that aims to assist outstanding young international scientists with their research on muscle stem cells. The foundation's benefactor, Gisela Krebs, is the sister of Nobel laureate Hans A. Krebs, who carried out pioneering research into cellular metabolism.

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See also:
"Neue Stiftung hilft Forschern am MDC.
Förderung neuer Ansätze gegen Muskelschwund", in: Der Tagesspiegel
(3. März 2016), Nr. 22 688, Wissenschaft und Forschung. (in German only) 

Karima Relizani, MyoGrad graduate (P1) and Doctor of Molecular and Cell Biology received the Special Jury Award for the best German-French dissertation. The prize is awarded each year by the French-German-University for an outstanding dissertation and is sponsored by the Robert Bosch Foundation.

Karima was admitted as one of the first jointly supervised doctoral students to the MyoGrad program in 2010. In her dissertation on "The function of Activin receptor type IIB signaling in adult skeletal muscle" she investigated the effect of the soluble Activin receptor type IIB on the muscle metabolism of mdx mice, the mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. She found out that despite an increase of muscle mass, the muscles of the treated mdx mice fatigued much earlier and developed a metabolic myopathy. Her findings will be part of several clincal studies and are of high relevance for patients's safety.
Karima graduated from MyoGrad with "summa cum laude" and obtained a joint doctoral degree from Freie Universität Berlin and Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI according to the cotutelle procedure.
On November 26, 2015 Professor Dr. Patricia Oster-Stierle, the President of the French-German University, in the presence of His Excellency the Germany Ambassador in France Dr. Niklaus Meyer-Landrut presented to Dr. rer. nat. Karima Relizani the Excellence Award of the Jury 2015 during a festive ceremony at the German Embassy in Paris.

Eight invited candidates rose to the challenge and presented their research work and themselves during the 6^th MyoGrad Selection Round. After having passed this highly competitive procedure the binational Selection Committee, selected the two best qualified applicants. The new students are awarded a three year MyoGrad stipend, and will start their scientific work on October 1st, 2015.
Nada Essawy from Egypt will join MyoGrad Project 7 and work on "Nuclear response to mechanical stress: Role of emerin phosphorylation and implications for nuclear envelopathies".
Sophie Pöhle-Kronwitter from Germany will focus on "Stem cell niche function and fibro-adipogenic degeneration of muscle interstitial cells" in MyoGrad Project 8.

Laurianne Davignon successfully finished her thesis in Paris. She defended her research project about the "Identification and characterisation of new genes associated to multiminicore disease".

Simone Spuler, MyoGrad Speaker and Head of the Institute for Muscle Sciences and University Outpatient Clinic for Muscle Disorders, was invited to give a talk on “Strong muscles into old age” at the Urania Berlin. (linked website in German only)

MyoGrad student got spotted on the review for the poster session at the Avian meeting in New York.
The MyoGrad student Joana Esteves de Lima went to the Avian Model System meeting in New York (financed by MyoGrad) and presented a poster on her work. She got spotted on the review for the poster session: ..."The poster session was lively. Of particular note for developmental biologists was David Huss’s poster on hybridisation chain reaction DNA probes for imaging gene expression in the quail - a potentially very powerful RNA detection system. Joana Esteves de Lima presented an interesting study on BMP and Notch signaling in chick muscle development."
Link to Avian Model System Meeting

The cover of the September issue of Traffic shows the accumulation of endogenous repair proteins at the wounding area of a human myotube after laser wounding. The image was taken by Andreas Marg, postdoc in the Spuler group.
Skeletal muscle is continually subjected to microinjuries that must be repaired to maintain structure and function. We investigated membrane repair by visualizing endogenous and GFP-tagged repair proteins after laser wounding and show that membrane repair and remodeling after injury is not a quick event but requires more than 20 min. Further we identified a new participant in the membrane repair process, the ATPase EHD2. EHD2 accumulates at the site of injury in human myotubes and at a peculiar structure that develops during membrane remodeling, the repair dome.

Andreas Marg, Verena Schoewel, Tobias Timmel, Anne Schulze, Claudio Shah, Oliver Daumke, Simone Spuler. Sarcolemmal repair is a slow process and includes EHD2. Traffic. 2012;13 (9):1286-94.

The 1^st MyoGrad Retreat took place from September 20-22, 2012 in the Grandhotel Römerbad, Badenweiler, an idyllic village in the beautiful Southern Black Forrest.
MyoGrad projects leaders, doctoral students, and tutors were meeting for 2 and a half days to plan new projects, discuss data and enjoy hiking in Markgraeflerland.

Another MyoGrad Selection Round took place on May 31, 2012. Out of 63 applicants the most qualified students were selected for MyoGrad by a binational committee. They started their scientific work on October 1st, 2012 in Berlin and Paris.

KAP fellow Dr. Verena Schöwel MD received a poster prize at the Meeting of the World Muscle Society in Portugal, 19 - 23. October 2011, for her work on myostatin blockade in dysferlin deficient muscular dystrophy (LGMD2B/MM). The KAP stipend allows physicians of the Charité Medical Faculty to receive a structured scientific education in close cooperation between a group at the Max-Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine and a complimentary group at the Charité, University Medicine Berlin, Germany.

The popular science television program "Galileo" (Pro7) reported about some of our KFO 192 research.
The projects by Markus Schülke and Simone Spuler address the effects of the important regulator of muscle mass, myostatin, on muscle function. The film can be seen under

Galileo Myostatin Videoclip