Cell News 1/2015
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The special focus of the 2014 meeting was ‘Signaling in Immune
Cells’ with a number of exciting keynote lectures. Joachim Schultze
(Bonn), Andreas Radbruch (Berlin), Thomas Höfer (Heidelberg) co-
vered aspects of signalling in the innate adaptive immune system
and the possibilities of computational analysis of such molecular
networks, while Gottfried Baier (Innsbruck, Austria) put emphasis
on Bench to Clinic approaches and Vigo Heissmeyer (München) fo-
cussed on the post-transcriptional regulation of T cell differentia-
tion. The many other facets of signal transduction were addressed
in workshops on “G Proteins and GPCRs” with a keynote lecture
by Silvano Sozzani (Brescia, Italy), “Pathogens and Disease” with a
keynote talk by Frank Kirchhoff (Ulm), and the session on “Differen-
tiation, Stress, and Death” which was introduced in a presentation
by Henning Walczak (London, UK). Moreover, Lucia Kucerova (Bra-
tislava, Slovakia) presented a keynote lecture in the DGZ-sponsored
workshop “Tumor Biology” which was organized by the signaling
study group of the DGZ. By introducing several cellular models,
Dr. Kucerova focused on the role of mesen-
chymal stroma/stem cells (MSC) during tumor
development, particularly breast cancer. She
demonstrated stimulation of tumor growth as
well as inhibitory effects by MSC depending
on a variety of different interactions between
MSC and breast cancer cells which may simi-
larly take place in vivo.
All keynote lectures were followed by a num-
ber of short talks selected from the submitted
abstracts. Here, the mixture of presentations
given by group leaders, post-doctoral fellows
and also a number of PhD students was high-
ly appreciated as a unique feature of the STS
meetings.
Since 2010, the STS honors an outstanding
scientist in the field of signal transduction
research to conclude the workshop program
with a “Honorary Medal Lecture”. The STS/CCS
Honorary Medal was introduced by the STS
in cooperation with the open access journal
As in the previous years, the annual Joint Meeting "Signal Trans-
duction – Receptors, Mediators and Genes" again took place in
Weimar (November 5-7 2014). This 18th meeting was organized
by the Signal Transduction Society (STS) and the signaling study
groups of the German Societies for Cell Biology (DGZ), for Bioche-
mistry and Molecular Biology (GBM) as well as two study groups
of the German Society for Immunology (DGfI) on “Signal Transduc-
tion” and on the “Biology of B Cells". Since 2013 the German Socie-
ty for Pharmacology (DGP) also supports this meeting by organising
a workshop on G Proteins and GPCRs. Other financial and scientific
contributions were made by the SFB 854 from Magdeburg on the
“Molecular Organisation of Cellular Communication in the Immune
System” (B. Schraven, Magdeburg) and the BMBF e:Bio network
T-Sys (R. Baumgrass, Berlin). The conference organisation was per-
formed by the STS council together with the chairpersons of the
study groups and members of the STS Advisory Board.
Meeting report of the DGZ study group
‘Signal Transduction’ and its participation
in the 18
th
Joint Meeting
"Signal Transduction – Receptors, Mediators and Genes"
Katharina Kubatzky, Frank Entschladen, Klaudia Giehl, Ottmar Janssen and Ralf Hass
The STS/CCS honorary medal 2014 was awarded to Nobel laureate Jules Hoffmann by the CCS Editor-in-Chief and
members of the STS and STS council (from left to right: Frank Entschladen, Ralf Hass, Dieter Kabelitz, Jules Hoffmann,
Stephan Feller, Klaudia Giehl, Ottmar Janssen).
Meeting Report
