LIV Summer Party

On June 30, 2022, the Leibniz Institute of Virology celebrated a summer party. In addition to great conversations, a barbecue buffet and a good atmosphere, this year's LIV PhD Award, LIV Postdoctoral Award as well as the LIV Mobility Grant were awarded. 

The summer party was held partly to thank all LIV employees for their tireless efforts over the past two years, but also to celebrate the successful renaming of the Institute.

Besides the exchange of colleagues during a nice afternoon and evening with good conversations and culinary delights, some prizes were also awarded at the party:

This year's PhD Award went to LIV alumnusJohannes Jung and his publication KIR3DS1 directs NK cell-mediated protection against human adenovirus infections, which appeared in the journal Science Immunology in 2021. Using a 3D organoid model of the intestine, he was able to show how natural killer (NK) cells recognize and kill intestinal epithelial cells infected with human adenoviruses (HAdV). Dr. Johannes Jung completed his PhD in the Strategic Incentive Program (SIP) in the two LIV research departments Virus Immunology and Viral Transformation er until January 2022 and has since left the institute.

The Postdoctoral Award 2022 goes to Boris Krichel from the LIV-associated Dynamics of Viral Structures group for his publication Hallmarks of Alpha- and Betacoronavirus non-structural protein 7+8 complexes, published in 2021 in the high-ranking journal Science Advances. In it, a mass spectrometric approach is used to further characterize the replication and transcription complex (RTC) of coronaviruses. Dr. Boris Krichel has already completed his PhD at LIV and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher.

The awardee Boris Krichel

By awarding the doctoral and postdoctoral prize of 500 euros each, the LIV Board of Directors annually recognizes the author of the most successful first publication of the previous year. This way, the LIV would like to emphasize the high value placed on young scientists at the institute and promote scientific excellence.

In addition, a Mobility Grant was also awarded:

Simon Corroyer-Dulmont, PhD student in the research department of Structural Cell Biology of Viruses, thus has the opportunity for a research stay with Emmanuelle Quemin and Paulo Tavares at the Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC) in Paris (France). At the multi-user cryoEM facility at the CSSB, Simon Corroyer-Dulmont has already been able to acquire data sets of various recombinant viruses pf SPP 1 using cellular electron cryo-tomography to analyze the mechanism of viral capsid assembly and viral genome packaging directly in the host cell. While at the I2BC, he plans to further analyze these tomograms and integrate them with complementary data.

Simon Corroyer-Dulmont

In addition to the award ceremony, the official handover of office to the newly elected Equal Opportunity team Michaela Bockelmann (Equal Opportunity Officer, research department Virus-Host Interaction) and Jennifer Schütte (Deputy Equal Opportunity Officer, Purchasing) also took place.

The new Equal Opportunity team and the Board