Looking back at “Models of Lung Disease” 2018

“Models of Lung Disease” 2018: a complete success!

On January 18^thand 19^th, 2018, Fraunhofer ITEM once again organized the seminar “Models of Lung Disease” at the CRC Hannover – seminar no. 17 of this series! This series of seminars, open to all interested persons from industry, academia, and authorities, has long become a tradition at Fraunhofer ITEM and is one of the institute’s flagships.

Different phases of translational research were addressed in excellent presentations from the subject areas of COPD, asthma, lung infection and exacerbation, tumor development, fibrosis, and new technologies. In a total of 19 lectures, 120 participants from 11 countries discussed new developments and findings and presented innovative models for lung research.

German-Australian iCAIR project launched by Fraunhofer

Integrated into the seminar agenda, this year’s “Models of Lung Disease” included a very special highlight: the official launch of the German-Australian project iCAIR. The aim of this project is to develop new anti-infective drugs.

Margalit Levin of the Australian embassy in Berlin said, “The iCAIR project joins a growing list of outstanding science, innovation and research projects between Germany and Australia, with the potential for significant global impact. This collaboration between Fraunhofer ITEM, Hannover Medical School and Griffith University’s Institute for Glycomics is proving once again that distance is no longer a barrier when pursuing research excellence – and will now work together to tackle the global imperative of developing new anti-infective therapies.”

Click here for more information about the collaborative project iCAIR.

“Medicine needs new treatments to combat infection, and this translates into an urgent need to develop new drugs. High development costs, the likely brief treatment time, and the potential for bacterial resistance have been putting companies off, since they are wary of losing money,” explains Prof. Armin Braun, Division Director of Preclinical Pharmacology at Fraunhofer ITEM and iCAIR project manager.

Participants’ opinions

Prizes awarded for three scientific posters

At the end of day 1 of this seminar, prizes were awarded to the authors of the best three posters. Congratulations!

1^stprize: Tatjana Decaesteker from KU Leuven, “Airway hyperreactivity and epithelial damage in a murine model of swimmers’ asthma”.

2^ndprize: Patricia Ramos Ramirez from Karolinska Institutet , “A novel HDM-induced asthma model in quinea pig: a role of mast cells in ariway hyperresponsiveness”.

3^rdprize: Lucas Küppers/Olaf Holz from Fraunhofer ITEM, “Breath volatile organic compounds of lung transplant recipients with and without chronic lung allograft dysfunction”.