Hessen Lung Academy

In the ILH, special emphasis is given to the training, support and career development of junior scientists in lung biology and pulmonary medicine. To this end, ILH liaises with pre-existent expertise at the Biomedical Research Campus of the JLU, within the DZL and within the Excellence Cluster Cardio-Pulmonary Institute (CPI). At the JLU, the Graduate School “Molecular Biology and Medicine of the Lung” (MBML) has been set up 16 years ago, with > 300 PhD or MD-PhD doctoral fellows trained up to date: notably, more than 70% of the alumni of this Graduate School have pursued a scientific career after terminating the program. Moreover, the MBML is closely linked to the DZL Academy and the CPI Academy. Current plans in the vibrant educational environment include:

• Harmonizing the educational programs to have one overarching program at the Giessen Lung Research Hub.
• Establishment of annual joint retreats focusing on training, support and career development of junior scientists in lung biology and pulmonary medicine.
• Set-up of an exchange program, allowing to form “pairs” of students under common mentorship of an ILH scientist and scientists from other sites of the DZL or the CPI.
• Initiating an individualized ILH mentoring program.

These additional activities will complement the current levels of educational outreach of the ILH:

• Undergraduate Outreach: In cooperation with JLU/UGMLC/CPI, scientists of the ILH get engaged in various teaching activities, aiming to reach out to MSc students in the different biomedical disciplines and attract the most talented of them for a doctoral fellowship in lung research. Moreover, talented MD students are attracted to translational pulmonary research early in their career by providing financial support for selected individuals to perform experimental work (6-12 months) and prepare an MD thesis in an ILH laboratory (small stipends for such research period available via the Medical Faculty). These MD students will be integrated into a structural educational program offered by the Giessen Graduate School for the Life Sciences.
• MD and PhD Education: All doctoral researchers in the various ILH research groups are entered into the Molecular Biology and Medicine of the Lung (MBML) graduate program.
• Postdoctoral Career Development Programs: In collaboration with the DZL Academy and the CPI Academy, the ILH Academy offers refresher and advanced courses in fields relevant to lung biology and disease, encompassing both physiological/medical and basic science topics, and soft skills training units to address the fields of project management, manuscript preparation and third party fund raising. Advanced intensive courses focus on specific areas or techniques arising from recent scientific discoveries. Training programs in management and entrepreneurship address exploitation aspects and career options outside of academia. Moreover, in addition to funds available via the budgets of the various ILH research groups, the ILH Academy provides competitive funds for postdoctoral fellowships, aiming to attract outstanding external postdoctoral fellows (up to 2 years after MD or PhD) to the ILH, and start-up grants, aiming to foster early independence and qualification for high-class external funding. This is of particular interest for starting a Medical Scientist Career.

In the first round 2022, the following grants were provided:

Start-up Grants:

• Natalia El-Merhie – Start-up grant on: “At the root: the role of matrikines in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)”
• Sascha Seidel – Startup grant on: “The role of spatio-temporal dynamics of the lung tumor microenvironment for tumor progression and immunosuppression”

Postdoc Grants:

• Chanil Valasarajan – Postdoctoral grant on investigating the role of macrophage specific long non-coding RNAs in macrophage mediated vascular remodelling in pulmonary hypertension (PH) and lung cancer associated pulmonary hypertension (LC-PH)
• Dharmesh Hirani - Investigating the functional role of Krüppel-like factor 4 (Klf4) in epigenetic regulation of myofibroblasts in neonatal and adult fibrotic lung remodeling

In the second round 2024, the following grants were provided:

Start-up Grants:

• Arun Lingampally - Deconvoluting the resident mesenchymal niche for AT2 cells during homeostasis and fibrosis in mice
• Poonam Sarode - Exploring transcriptomic signature of immune cells and ist association with CRP in lung cancer-associated pulmonary hypertension
• Sara Taghizadeh - The role of a novel AT2 cell subpopulation defined by Notch3 activation in alveolar regeneration

Postdoc Grants:

• Álex Clavería Cabello - Investigating the inter-generational metabolic imprinting of the innate immune system and the lung immune response after infection
• Sandra Medrano-Garcia - Deciphering the role of interleukin-9: insights into pulmonary hypertension and lung cancer-associated pulmonary hypertension

• Clinical Scientist Tracks: The ILH joins the Giessen Clinical Scientist Program CAREER. Grants in this program cover – in addition to laboratory personnel and consumables - up to 50% of the applicant’s own position to enable periodic relief from clinical duties.

The international graduate program “Molecular Biology and Medicine of the Lung” (MBML) was established in 2002 and is the flagship program of the Universities of Giessen and Marburg Lung Center (UGMLC). It is currently led by ILH Professor Elie El Agha under the chairmanship of ILH Founding Director Professor Werner Seeger. The MBML trains doctoral students from various disciplines on various aspects of lung anatomy, biology, physiology, and pathophysiology with strong focus on state-of-the-art technologies and their use in translational lung research. Enrolled students are required to pass three written examinations throughout the two-year coursework and attend three Annual Retreats to successfully graduate from the MBML. The Annual Retreat takes place in Rauischholzhausen Castle, and the attendees consist of up to ten keynote speakers who are leading experts in cardiopulmonary biology or medicine, some of which are Nobel Laureates, in addition to the faculty, student body, DZL Academy fellows representing all DZL sites and affiliated partners, and other invited guests. The keynote lectures are interspersed with lectures by all three generations of enrolled graduate students, who report on the progress of their dissertation projects.

Typical attendance of an MBML Annual Retreat (Group photo at the 17th MBML Annual Retreat between 3-5 July 2019).

To date, 291 students (54% females, 46% males, and less than 1% diverse) from 51 countries have enrolled in the MBML, one third of which being from Germany and the rest from Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. Around 77% of enrolled candidates come from natural sciences and around 20% from medicine, with the rest being from veterinary medicine and pharmacy.

The MBML alumni pool includes multiple current faculty and adjunct faculty members of the ILH in addition to other external members who went on to assume leading roles at other institutes in Germany or worldwide. Around 52% of MBML alumni stay in academia, 33% join the industry, 10% continue as clinician scientists, and 5% as clinicians.

We invite all students, doctoral candidates and early postdocs (up to 8 years post-PhD or MD) of the various DZL principal investigator laboratory groups to become a Fellow of the DZL Academy. The 8 year postdoc cut-off for membership in the DZL Academy will be extended for time taken as parental leave or time taken off work to care for family members.

DataLung is a joint venture between the DZL Academy and the Artificial Intelligence and Digital Tools disease-spanning working group. It is set up as an umbrella organization around existing PhD schools across the DZL sites. DZL members can apply to join DataLung to work towards completing a certificate in data science for pulmonary research.