Summer School 2013

The third NanoDiaRA Summer School took place at Charité Berlin from 1 to 5 July, 2013. Prof. Frank Buttgereit, Dr. Timo Gaber and their team had invited the NanoDiaRA young investigators to participate in this last project Summer School about nanomedicine in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic inflammation. Participants from the different groups at Charité, from EPFL, MatSearch, Arrayon, Paracelsus University Salzburg and from the Universities of Lund and Tartu came together for one week to hear lectures and do experimental work in the laboratories of Charité, to present their own results and to network and share the state of their work.

The first day was dedicated to the topic of inflammatory diseases and nanomaterials for medical applications in general. Prof. Frank Buttgereit (Charité) informed about the state of the art in the diagnosis and therapy of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Dr. Margarethe Hofmann-Amtenbrink (MatSearch) introduced NanoDiaRA and other European research projects developing nanomaterials for medical applications, and Prof. Heinrich Hofmann (EPFL) gave a talk about the state of the art of nanomaterials in medicine. In the afternoon, the participants had the opportunity to visit the laboratories at Charité and get a first impression of how the in vitro tests with nanoparticles are conducted.

On the second day, the young investigators themselves presented the materials and methods of their work within NanoDiaRA which led to intense discussions and new ideas of how to proceed in the last six months of the project. They also had the opportunity to attend the first application of an Inca Array at Charité which the group of Arrayon had set up (see also the Inca Array film) Dr. Heide Boeth (Charité-group of Prof. Georg Duda), who is involved in investigations of osteoarthritis (OA), offered an insight into her functional studies for OA detection. The participants could also conduct some measurements by themselves.

On day 3, Prof. Marina Backhaus (Charité) gave a presentation on imaging of inflammation and “Rheumascan”, a method for the detection of Rheumatoid Arthritis developed at Charité, and Dr. Wolfgang Wirth (PMU Salzburg) talked about the imaging of joint degradation. In the afternoon, Dr. Timo Gaber and Dr. Cindy Strehl (Charité) offered a practical lab course in in vitro studies: They showed the participant the whole process, starting with isolating cells from blood serum.

The analysis of the experiments followed on Thursday morning (day 4). Timo Gaber gave an overview of in vitro studies about nanoparticles, while Dr. Thomas Häupl (Charité) gave a presentation on personalized medicine and theranostics in the treatment of inflammatory diseases. The rest of the afternoon was dedicated to a social event: a boat tour on the Spree and a following dinner in Berlin-Friedrichshain.

The last day finally broached the issue of legal and ethical aspects of our work. Nicole Schröder (EU-Office of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research) explained regulations in FP7 and introduced the ERC starting grants to the young researchers. Afterwards, Thomas Häupl gave an overview of the field of data banking and data protection and its critical points. The programme ended with two hours of a common discussion about social and ethical questions in nanomedicine and early diagnostics which led to a statement paper about the opinions of our young researchers. 

The participants agreed that this Berlin week was highly successful: They stated to have learnt and shared a lot of relevant information and – after three and a half year of working together – everyone regretted that this had been the last NanoDiaRA Summer School. We thank Frank Buttgereit, Timo Gaber and the whole team at Charité for making this week possible.