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Severine Cranz receives prize for the Best Poster in Endstage Lung Disease (ELD) at the 8th DZL Annual Meeting

Prof. Dr. Werner Seeger, Severine Cranz, Photo: Michael Wolf

Severine Cranz, PhD student in the CPC/ILBD’s core unit “Live Cell Imaging” and member of the CPC Research School, received the best poster award in the disease area “Endstage Lung Disease (ELD)” at the 8th DZL (German Center for Lung Research) Annual Meeting, which took place in Mannheim from February 7 to 8, 2019, with over 480 clinicians and researchers attending.

Severine Cranz - together with her direct supervisors Dr. Gerald Burgstaller (ILBD) and Prof. Dr. Dr. Melanie Königshoff (LRR) - presented a poster with the title “Studying homing of basic lung cell types into their native niche of decellularized ex vivo human lung slices by 4D live-cell light sheet microscopy”. The aim of the study is to use stem cells for repopulating 3D lung scaffolds, which are void of functional lung cells after a special decellularization procedure, to re-build new lungs for transplantation. For that, they investigate the interaction of the extracellular matrix and stem cells, and try to understand how this crosstalk might influence cellular behavior. As one state-of-the-art technology, the researchers used a brand-new lightsheet microscope that - due its incredible fast image acquisition - can be used to study the dynamics, behavior, and interaction of lung stem cells over time in 3D.

The German Center for Lung Research (DZL) is an association of the leading university and non-university institutions dedicated to lung research in Germany. Using translational research methods, the DZL seeks to jointly develop new approaches for the prevention, diagnosis, and therapy of serious lung diseases focusing on eight disease areas.