This year's CMMC Annual Retreat was a great success! Thanks to the enthusiastic participation of speakers, poster presenters, and attendees, the event was vibrant and highly engaging. The retreat took place at the MTI Lecture Hall Building of the Faculty of Medicine from Wednesday, March 12, 2025, to Thursday, March 13, 2025. 

As in previous years, the program was expertly organized by members of the CMMC Junior Faculty. We sincerely thank Alessandro Annibaldi, Johannes Brägelmann, Sebastian Brähler, Elisa Motori, and Débora Trentini for their outstanding efforts in shaping the scientific program of the retreat.

We were honored to have Prof. Esther von Stebut-Borschitz (Vice Dean - Faculty of Medicine) and Prof. Stanislav Kopriva (Vice Dean – Science Faculty) open the event with a welcome address.

Scientific Program Highlights
The retreat featured three Short Talk Sessions with 14 presentations, where CMMC PIs or their representatives shared progress on their research projects. Additionally, two Flash Talk Sessions provided an opportunity for 26 PhD students and PostDocs to introduce their research in a dynamic and engaging manner. These talks served as a perfect introduction to the two Poster Sessions, which featured a total of 83 posters. Poster presenters - primarily PhD students - enthusiastically invited fellow participants to engage in discussions, fostering a lively and insightful scientific exchange. 

The scientific program was further enriched by two CMMC Lectures: Ilaria Ella (KU Leuven) delivered an inspiring talk on metabolic cross-talk between cancer and immunce cell in metastatic melanoma and Christoph Kuppe (University Hospital RWTH Aachen) presented an engaging lecture on patient-level multiomics analysis of human heart and kidney disease

Flash Talk & Poster Award Winners
We are delighted to announce the recipients of the Flash Talk Awards and Poster Prizes:

From left to right: Elisa Motori (Scientific Organizer), Alessandro Annibaldi (Scientific Organizer), Yein Park (Flash Talk Awardee, RG Zempel), Celien Kuiper-Makris (Flash Talk Awardee, RG Alejandre Alcazar), Daniel Adam (Flash Talk Awardee, RG Winkels), Débora Trentini Schmidt (Scientific Organizer), Johannes Brägelmann (Scientific Organizer), Emilia Kieckhöfer (Poster Prize Winners, RG Schermer), Marie Holm Solheim (Poster Prize Winner, RG Brüning) and Louise Injarabian (Poster Prize Winner, RG Eming) - Photos: Dirk Jacobi / Collage: CMMC

A huge thank you to all the Flash Talk Speakers and Poster Presenters for your participation. You all did an outstanding job, making the evaluation process a real challenge!

The retreat was accompanied by an Industrial Exhibition, featuring the following companies: ABclonal • INTEGRA • Macherey-Nagel • MedChemExpress • Merck • New England Biolabs • Proteintech.

We sincerely appreciate everyone who contributed to making this event a success and look forward to welcoming you again at next year’s CMMC Annual Retreat 2026!

Impressions - CMMC Annual Retreat 2025

Photocredits by Dieter Jacobi

f.l.t.r.: Johannes Brägelmann, Sebastian Brähler, Debora Trentini Schmidt, Alessandro Annibaldi, Elisa Motori
f.l.t.r.: Elisa Motori, Johannes Brägelmann, Debora Trentini Schmidt
Thomas Benzing, Elisa Motori
Daniel Adam, Debora Trentini Schmidt
f.l.t.r.: Debora Grosskopf-Kroiher, Elisa Motori, Johannes Brägelmann, Debora Trentini Schmidt
Johannes Brägelmann
f.l.t.r.: Elisa Motori, Alessandro Annibaldi, Yein Park, Celien Kuiper Makris, Daniel Adam, Debora Trentini Schmidt, Johannes Brägelmann
f.l.t.r.: Elisa Motori, Alessandro Annibaldi, Emilia Kieckhöfer, Marie Holm Solheim, Johannes Brägelmann, Sebstian Brähler (missing: winner Louise Injarabian)
f.l.t.r.: Elisa Motori, Johannes Brägelmann, Debora Trentini Schmidt, Sebastian Brähler

Speakers Short Talk Sessions

CMMC Art Project 2025

(c) Nourhan Hassan / CMMC Organizer Team

We gratefully acknowledge the support by our industrial partners

ABclonal • INTEGRA • Macherey Nagel • Merck • New England Biolabs • Proteintech  

The sponsoring (€ 450,- per company) is used for event related expenses; e.g. travel of the keynote speakers, conference handouts and event management. Conference material provided by MedChemExpress.

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