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At the end of March, we said goodbye to Jennifer after three great years as a postdoctoral fellow in our lab, working on Respiratory Syncytial Virus. We are excited to see her start this new chapter as she launches her own research group in Valencia with a tenure-track position supported by the prestigious Ramón y Cajal (RyC) Fellowship.
To celebrate, we enjoyed a nice Bavarian-style lunch and made sure she leaves Munich with a few more good memories. Jennifer, you are a great person to work with and to enjoy Weißwurst with. We will miss having you around and wish you all the best in your scientific journey!
Text by Anastasiia, photos by Lara and Di
During the week of September 22nd, our group enjoyed a lab retreat in the peaceful and inspiring surroundings of Steingaden. Over three intensive days, we shared project overviews, reflected on lab well-being, and exchanged ideas about our future direction as a team.
A highlight of the retreat was our alpaca walk on the afternoon of the second day—a surprisingly effective and thoroughly enjoyable team-building experience. Guiding an alpaca, much like conducting a scientific project, demands patience, strategy, and a sense of humor—but the rewards are well worth the effort. The walk brought plenty of laughter, positive energy, and, of course, a flood of photos.
Fulfilling as it was, the lab retreat also helped us define our direction for future work, both as individual researchers and as a team.
Text by Anastasiia, photos by Dorsa
In mid-July, a brand-new PhD emerged from the walls of our lab! After five years full of diverse projects and high-impact publications, Yiqi successfully wrapped up her PhD journey. Her thesis focused on the multi-omics characterization of virus–host interactions, and along the way she mastered a wide range of methods, including transcriptomics, proteomics, phosphoproteomics, metabolomics, and pulse-chase analysis of protein turnover.
What turned out to be the bigger challenge—answering the committee’s toughest questions or solving the puzzles decorating her PhD hat—remains unclear. But what we do know is that she passed every test with dignity.
While Yiqi still has some exciting discoveries to finish in our lab, her colleagues are glad to keep their favorite event-maker around for another year. After that, she’s eager to continue her scientific adventures in Japan, catching up with the latest in bat virology.
We warmly congratulate Yiqi on her hard-earned degree and wish her every success in the future!
Text by Anastasiia, photos by Anqi
At the height of summer, Anqi successfully defended her doctoral thesis on a new form of cell death regulation. Congratulations Dr Wang! The journey of discovery is never easy, but your dedication and resilience carried you through.
It took courage to leave pandas and hotpots behind and pursue a PhD far away from home. We’re grateful for your decision five years ago, and we look forward to following your exciting projects in the years to come!
Text by Yiqi, photos by Weiqi, Yicheng and Di.
A bit over six years ago, the Innates moved from MPI to the lovely “Schneckebunker” in the city centre. Now, after years of planning and replanning, we have moved again to our new home in TranslaTUM! Leaving Schnecke was not easy – it contained so much of our memories, and a bit too much of stuff (or trash, the borderline was often unclear). After all, this building has been occupied by researchers for more than three decades! It took us a while to sort out the things to bring with us while admiring the design of some historical lab pieces…
The big days came at the end of December – carton after carton, truck after truck, we were moving! There were unexpected challenges every day, and it was a stressful time for everyone. However, we managed it with an incredible team effort.
We had our last Christmas party in Schnecke and decorated the walls with colourful paintings. Many ex-Innates came to experience Schnecke one last time. In the upcoming years, it will be replaced by a brand-new building for multiple sclerosis research.
Goodbye Schnecke – thank you for hosting us with your special charm! Hello TranslaTUM – we’re ready for a fresh start!
Text by Yiqi, photos by Dorsa, Lara and Virginie.
At the beginning of October, the world welcomed another fresh doctor – Karsten held a great defence on his thesis “Unveiling Antiviral Roles of Interferon-Stimulated Genes Through Time-Resolved CRISPR/Cas9 Screening”. Congratulations Dr Krey – you deserve an additional doctor title in engineering, for the amount of equipment you fixed in the lab!
With your dedication and creativity, we believe you’ll be accomplished in anything you do in your future endeavours! Dear Karsten, we are grateful to have a warm-hearted and resourceful colleague like you, and we wish you all the best in your new life in Vienna!
Read his first author papers here:
At the end of summer, we
had to part ways with our beloved data scientist Sabri. Once again, we had a
farewell party, where we enjoyed an amazing homemade dinner by Sabri, trying to
engrave the two most important teachings of Sabri in our mind – “Have you tried
switching it off and on again?” and “GIGO – garbage in, garbage out”.
Dear Sabri, thank you
for analysing our proteomics and Incucyte data and keeping our IT system in
shape. You’re always approachable and ready to help, it was our pleasure
working with you! We wish you all the best in your new career!
Text by Yiqi.
Every year, we welcome new members and say goodbye to those moving on, but no farewell has been harder than Lila’s. We threw a big party in April for Lila and a few others leaving at similar times, revisiting all the good memories across generations of Innates.
Dear Lila, thank you for keeping the lab running all these years! Words cannot fully express our gratitude, for you’re not only a lab manager who helped with our scientific challenges but also a counsellor who guided us through our inner struggles. Your professional skills, in combination with your kindness and deep understanding of different cultures, have greatly shaped our lab. We will surely miss you a lot, and we wish you the best of luck with whatever lies ahead!
Update in March 2025 – congratulations to Lila on her new job at Institute Curie in Paris!
Text by Yiqi, photos by Melissa and Virginie.
Our 2024 has an exciting start already: at the end of February, Quirin successfully defended his thesis “Identification and characterization of restricting host factors for viral replication”. Congratulations Dr Emslander! Quirin efficiently finished several projects with us in just under four years. We wish you a relaxing and well-deserved holiday and a lot of success in your career ahead!
Read his first author papers here:
Text by Yiqi, photo by Melissa.
Prof. Dr. Andreas Pichlmair
Immunopathology of Virus Infections Laboratory, Institute of Virology, Technical University of Munich
Einsteinstr. 25, D-81675 Munich, Germany
tel: +49 (0) 89 4140 9270, email: andreas.pichlmair@tum.de
https://www.mri.tum.de/datenschutz
Der Datenschutzbeauftragte des Klinikums ist unter Klinikum rechts der Isar, Stabsstelle Datenschutz, 81664 München oder unter 089/4140-0 oder datenschutz@mri.tum.de zu erreichen.
Der Datenschutzbeauftragte der TU München ist unter beauftragter@datenschutz.tum.de zu erreichen.
