News 2024

October

Welcome, Johannes!

The 'Hake team' warmly welcomes Johannes Groos as a new doctoral student. Johannes will actively support us as a bioinformatician and bring new ideas into the team with his project(s).We are extremely happy that Johannes joined the team!We wish Johannes a successful and happy time at the Institute!

Study from Tim Marius Wunderlich accepted by Nucleic Acids Research (NAR)

Congratulations Tim!

Tim's exciting work on the zinc finger protein ZNF512B, which aggregates chromatin, interacts with the NuRD complex and represses gene expression, has been accepted in the journal Nucleic Acids Research (NAR). Since almost all members of the Hake group were involved in this research project, we all spontaneously got together and toasted this success! Many thanks also to our collaboration partners Olalla Vazquez (University of Marburg), Joel Mackay (University of Sydney, Australia), Falk Butter (FLI Greifswald) and Marek Bartkuhn (JLU Giessen)! As soon as the study is published, there will - of course - be a ceremonial hanging of the paper. Stay tuned...

September

AG Hake retreat to Wetzlar

This year the Hake team visited Wetzlar. A retreat of reflection but also team spirit strengthening. After an invigorating brunch, Germany's dark history was brought into the present with a tour of an extensive, underground tunnel that was used for the industrial production of weapons material during World War II, reinforcing all of our concerns about the current socio-political situation. We all agree: NEVER AGAIN! After this extremely interesting visit to these oppressive underground facilities, we were able to work through the experience in the beer garden at the river Lahn followed by a refreshment in a restaurant. The day ended sportily with lots of fun in the bowling center. As a team, which stands for diversity and inclusion, we approach new scientific and social challenges thoughtfully and with strengthened views.

 1. Mini-Symposium des Instituts für Genetik mit anschließendem Sommergrillfest

Ein Vormittag mit spannenden wissenschaftlichen Vorträgen von Mitgliedern der AGs Dammann (Yufen Thao und Sarah Arroyo y Villora), Braun (Vishnu Sreechakram) und Hake (Jie Lan und Carlotta Kreienbaum) wurde mit einem anschließenden Grillfest bei strahlendem Sonnenschein verbunden. Das Institut für Genetik zeigte sich von seiner besten Seite. Man kann fesselnde Forschung mit gemeinsamen Spaß wunderbar verbinden.

Juli

September

 1st mini-symposium of the Institute for Genetics followed by a summer barbecue

A morning with exciting scientific lectures by members of the Dammann (Yufen Thao and Sarah Arroyo y Villora), Braun (Vishnu Sreechakram) and Hake (Jie Lan and Carlotta Kreienbaum) groups was combined with a subsequent barbecue in bright sunshine. The Institute of Genetics showed itself at its best. We demonstrated beautifully: one can wonderfully combine captivating research with shared fun.

July

Award ceremony for the European Championship betting game 2024

The Institute of Genetics shines not only with scientific excellence, but also with sporting knowledge. At this year's European Championship prediction game, Nadine was able to impress with her great football expertise. Jörg came – very narrowly – second and Jonas third. Congratulations to the winners! As always, it was a lot of fun to compete with each other also outside of the academic world.

Summer conclusion to AG Hake's employee discussions

As every year, AG Hake's employee discussions were very well received and provided a lot of new inspiration. Reinforced as a team and “scientific family”, this day ended with a wonderful and very fun dinner next to the Lahn.

School student internship number 5

Once again it was a lot of fun and a lot to learn during the student internship at the AG Hake. Five students learned about everyday laboratory life through experiments: sterile work in cell culture, isolation of histones and subsequent molecular biological and biochemical analyses. All five of them worked extremely well and we are glad that they enriched our everyday laboratory life. With such committed young talents, the future of science is secured!

Sandra Hake and Sigurd Braun as speakers at the first Hessian-Bavarian “Chromatin” minisymposium in Marburg (organizer Prof. Dr. Alexander Brehm)

Prof. Dr. Alexander Brehm from the University of Marburg organized the first Hessian-Bavarian minisymposium on “chromatin”. It was an exciting afternoon with inspiring lectures by Patrick Heun, Axel Imhof, Gernod Langst as well as Sandra Hake and Sigurd Braun. In the evening, the friendships between the scientists from Hesse and Bavaria were further strengthened at a joint dinner! Many thanks to Alexander Brehm for this wonderful symposium. Hopefully there will be more in the future.

June

Excursion of the working group Dammann to Marburg

April

Symposium "Dynamics in chromatin organization and RNA regulation"

On April 10-12, 2024, a three-day international symposium on chromatin and RNA research took place in the auditorium of the JLU main building, organized by Prof. Dr. Sigurd Braun (Institute of Genetics) in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Katja Sträßer (Institute of Biochemistry). The conference was funded by two EU and DFG-supported graduate programs (Cell2Cell, RTG2355),  coordinated by LMU Munich and JLU Giessen. Registration was free, allowing many students and doctoral candidates to participate.

The event was a great success! A total of 130 local and international participants attended. The symposium was opened by the Vice President for Research of the JLU, Prof. Dr. Martin Kramer. Leading researchers from Israel (Prof. Dr. Schraga Schwarz), Switzerland (Prof. Dr. Susan Gasser), and the Netherlands (Prof. Dr. Bas van Steensel) delivered the keynote lectures. Many other presentations followed from guest speakers and local researchers, such as Prof. Dr. Sandra Hake and Vishnu N. Suma Sreechakram from the Institute of Genetics. Among the speakers were also many early stage researchers from the two graduate programs. Another highlight was the awarding of the 300 Euro poster prize by the German Genetics Society to Gertjan Laenen (Institut Curie, Paris), presented by the GfG President, Prof. Dr. Sandra Hake.

The presentations covered a wide range of different aspects of gene expression: from genome architecture to epigenetic mechanisms and single-cell level analyses to RNA modifications. Their importance during adaptation to environmental changes and infection with various parasites was also highlighted.

Februar

Dammann Group celebrates Fasching

January

Sandra Hake and Sigurd Braun: newly elected President and Vice President of the German Society for Genetics (GfG)

At the online general meeting of the Society for Genetics (@GfGenetik), Prof. Dr. Sandra Hake and Prof. Dr. Sigurd Braun were elected as the new President and Vice President of the German Society for Genetics. Both are very honored and look forward to the future tasks and challenges. An interview with Sandra Hake about her new position can be found in the BIOspektrum Edition 1/2024 (https://www.biospektrum.de/ausgabe).