News & Awards

AG Bazzi

Congratulations to Hisham Bazzi for his new position as Associate Professor for Cell & Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan! (www.bazzilab.com)

AG Eming

Louise Injarabian received a travel grant by the “European Society for Dermatological Research” to attend the 54^th Annual ESDR Meeting (Antwerp, Belgium).

Louise Injarabian was awarded a poster prize at the "Annual CMMC Retreat” in Cologne for her poster, "Macrophage cell death instructs fibroblast repair functions in skin wound healing.”

Sabine Eming was elected Secretary General of the International Society for Investigative Dermatology

AG Fabri

Congratulations to Mario Fabri on his appointment as head of the Department of Dermatology at Jena University Hospital!

Mario will be associated with our department until the end of the year.

AG Franklin

Jonas Rauterberg was awarded a poster prize for translational dermato-oncology at the 35th German Skin Cancer conference (35. Deutscher Hautkrebskongress) for the project: Tumor-associated fibroblasts as a predictive marker in stage III melanoma patients receiving adjuvant anti-PD-1 therapy.

AG Zigrino

Joy Steinkamp received a travel award from the 11th Mildred Scheel Cancer Conference 2025 in Bonn (09.-10.07.2025)

AG von Stebut

Jaqueline Manili was selected as a participant of the ADF Winter School 2025

Miscellaneous

ESDR 2024, Lisbon, Portugal: travel award to Jana Nätlitz  

Jana Nätlitz (née Knuever) published: Mitochondrial DNA mutations attenuate Bleomycin-induced dermal fibrosis by inhibiting differentiation into myofibroblasts. Reiter L, Niehoff N, Weiland D, Helbig D, Eming SA, Krieg T, Etich J, Brachvogel B, Wiesner RJ, Knuever J. Matrix Biol. 2024 Sep;132:72-86. doi: 10.1016/j.matbio.2024.07.002

AG Bazzi 

The Bazzi Lab is transitioning to the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA 

AG Fabri 

Luisa Bopp receives (March 2024) the Dermato Oncology Junior Scientist Award of the ADF for her poster: “Metabolite-driven regulation of T cells in human keratinocyte-derived skin cancer” 

Mai 2024: Our paper on T-cell metabolism in keratinocyte-derived skin cancer is published: Glutamine promotes human CD8+ T cells and counteracts imiquimod-induced T cell hyporesponsiveness: iScience  

Robert Seitz wins the 2024 Research Track Award from the Faculty of Medicine.

AG Zigrino

Congratulations to Joy Steinkamp, a Ph.D. student, on successfully acquiring funding from the Noltig-Stiftung to investigate the “XIAP-mediated VM and its role in reprogramming metabolism in melanoma.”

AG Eming

Oscar-Gans-Preis (Förderpreis) 2023 der Deutschen Dermatologischen Gesellschaft e. V. an Dr. rer. nat. Sebastian Willenborg

ISID 2023, Tokyo, Japan: ESDR Travel award to Dr. rer. nat. Sebastian Willenborg

AG Fabri

Mario Fabri receives Momentum Grant of the VolkswagenStiftung.

Luisa Bopp: Translational Research Award at the 49^th Meeting of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Dermatologische Forschung (ADF) 2023 for the abstract „Imiquimod perturbs amino acid metabolism in human CD8⁺ T cells“

AG von Stebut

Niloofar Ghaffar: Fellowship from the Köln Fortune Programm

AG Krieg

ISID 2023, Tokyo, Japan: Travel award to Ann-Helen Rosendahl

AG Bazzi

GRC on Cell Growth and Proliferation, Vermont, USA, Travel award to Charlotte Meyer-Gerards

GRC on Fertilization and Activation of Development, New Hampshire, USA, Travel award to Marta Grzonka

AG Niessen

AG Eming

Sabine Eming elected as President of the European Society of Dermatological Research

Xiaolei Ding, Ph.D. has been appointed a Professorship at the Institute of Geriatrics, Shanghai University, Affiliated Nantong Hospital of Shanghai University (The Sixth People's Hospital of Nantong), School of Medicine, Shanghai University, Nantong 226011, China and Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Organ Repair, School of Medicine, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China.

AG Fabri

Mario Fabri elected as board chairman of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Dermatologische Infektiologie und Tropendermatologie
 

AG Niessen

29.09.2021 ESDR 2021, Klaus Göbel received best poster award.

22.09.2021 50th ESDR anniversary lecture from our own Carien Niessen „50 Years of Cell Biology of the Skin”.

05.09.2021 EuroIF 2021 conference in Rolduc, selected talk by Matthias and poster presentation for Hanyin in first live conference since start of pandemic!

AG Bazzi

September 2021: The lab successfully acquired funding from the DFG to investigate the roles of “The STRIPAK complex in skin epidermal differentiation and barrier formation”.

May 2021: The lab published an SFB829-supported work by Damen et al. entitled, ”High proliferation and delamination during skin epidermal stratification” in Nat Commun.
 

AG von Stebut-Borschitz

Amanda Zmyslony was awarded a Clinician Scientist Program from the Faculty of Medicine, University Hospital Cologne

 AG Fabri

Luisa Hellmich was awarded a Clinician Scientist Program from the Faculty of Medicine

AG Bazzi

Published a long-term collaboration on the roles of centrosomes in immune cells: Tamzalit, F., Tran, D., Jin ,W., Boyko, V., Bazzi, H., Kepecs, A., Kam, L.C., Anderson, K.V., Huse, M. (2020). Centrioles control the capacity, but not the specificity of cytotoxic T cell killing. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 117(8),4310-4319.

AG Zigrino/Mauch

Paola Zigrino was appointed Editorial Board Member of Experimental Dermatology and the journal Cancers

AG Niessen

Our review “Tracing the evolutionary Origin of Desmosomes” with Kathy Green, Quinn Roth-Carter (Northwestern University), and Scott Nichols (University of Denver) is out in Current Biology. I learned a lot through discussions with Scott and Kathy. Thanks also to the Humboldt foundation that supported her sabbatical in the lab. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982220304176

Very happy to contribute to great work of the Wickström lab now published in Cell, in which they identified how stem cells prevent DNA damage by mechanical stress.

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30345-7

Welcome to the lab Dr Stéphanie Miceli, our new lab coordinator,

Congrats to Matthias for providing biological evidence to the physical modeling done by Preeti (Syracuse) on how differential cell shape or size can regulate micro sorting within tissues. A great interdisciplinary and fun collaboration with Jen Schwarz and Lisa Manning, now published in Soft Matter: pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/SM/C9SM01084J

Sahu P,  Sussman DM, Rübsam M, Mertz A, Horsley V, Dufresne E, Niessen CM, Marchetti MC, Manning ML, Schwarz JM.  (2020) Small-scale demixing in confluent biological tissues. Soft Matter https://doi.org/10.1039/C9SM01084J

Welcome to our new Postdoc Jimit Shah and congrats on your SNSF (Swiss National Funds) grant. Jimit will focus on understanding how polarity signaling regulates epidermal self-renewal and differentiation

Welcome to our new Ph.D. student Aishwarya Bhogale, who will work with Matthias on understanding how cell structure controls TJ barrier formation and terminal differentiation. 

Congrats Franziska and Fred on their paper in JID in which they used a proteomic approach to examine how epidermal barrier maintenance differs from barrier morphogenesis. They identified a key role for the Ceramide Synthase 4 in epidermal barrier maintenance but not morphogenesis. A very nice model for examining how disturbed lipid homeostasis drives skin barrier dysfunction and inflammation. Thanks also to our great collaborators.  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022202X20301603?via%3Dihub

AG Krieg

Katrin showed that lack as well as overabundance of collagen XII in the skin results in disturbed repair and she delineates two different mechanisms:
Schönborn K, Willenborg S, Schulz JN, Imhof T, Eming SA, Quondamatteo F, Brinckmann J, Niehoff A, Paulsson M, Koch M, Eckes B, Krieg T. Role of collagen XII in skin homeostasis and repair. Matrix Biol 2020, accepted
 

AG von Stebut-Borschitz

Cecilia Fiuza Favali that joined us from the University of Brasilia was awarded a Guest Professorship of the medical deanery University Hospital Cologne

Nir Yogev received a Köln Fortune Research Promotion Program with the title “Macrophage metabolic state during cutaneous leishmaniasis.”

 AG Fabri

Mario Fabri was elected as ADF Board Member.

Mario Fabri was re-elected as an ADI-TD Board Member.

Robert Rongisch was awarded a Clinician Scientist Program from the Faculty of Medicine

AG Zigrino/Mauch

Elke Pach was awarded a poster prize at the " Annual Meeting of the German Society of Matrix Biology, " in Regensburg for her poster: Deletion of fibroblast MMP-14 in the skin leads to reduced melanoma growth

Julia Fromme was awarded the Fellowship of the Mildred Scheel School of Oncology Cologne-Bonn (MSSO), Deutsche Krebshilfe

AG Niessen

Hanyin Zhang and Alessandra Bianco both win an SFB829 Integrated Research Training Group Fellowship, congratulations!

Franziska Peters was awarded with a poster prize on the "21. Tagung der DWFA", in Cologne for her poster: "Identifizierung einer neuen Keimbahnmutation im KIT-Gen bei familiärer.

Matthias Rübsam received a CECAD Senior Postdoctoral Grant.

Matthias Rübsam received the Uni Köln Medical Faculty Award for his publication „E-cadherin integrates mechanotransduction and EGFR signaling to control junctional tissue polarization and tight junction positioning” in Nature Communications.

AG Krieg

Isabel Zeinert joined as PhD student to work with Beate Eckes on fibroblast activation in rheumatoid arthritis.
 

AG von Stebut

Olivia Kriger completed her M. Sc.: „Modulation des myeloiden Zelltods in der murinen kutanen Leishmaniasis“ (19.02.2026)

Valeria Smirnow completed her Dr. med. Thesis: “Der Einfluss des Alters und des Geschlechts auf die Homöostase humaner innater lymphoider Zellen in der Haut" (03.03.2026)

AG Franklin

Dionysios Garmpis, Dr. med. Thesis: "Combining immune-related adverse events and inflammatory profiles enhances prognostic accuracy in metastatic melanoma under PD-1-based therapy" (28.05.02026)

AG Franklin / AG Zigrino

Leon Kampe (geb. Al Kayed) Dr. med. Thesis: Thesis: "Biomarker-basierte Risikostratifizierung beim Melanom der Stadien II und III: serologische und immunhistochemische Analysen" (25.02.2026)

AG Zigrino

Joy Steinkamp, completed her Dr.rer.nat. Thesis: “Role of XIAP in melanoma vascularization and its therapeutic value for tumor treatment.” (08.05.2026)

AG Franklin

Viktoria Anna Sopie Schildbach completed her Dr. med.: Prognostic value of routinely collected inflammatory blood parameters in stage III melanoma patients with microscopic sentinel lymph node metastasis (21.05.2025)

Kim Mohadjeri completed her Dr. med. dent.: Untersuchung der Immunzellinteraktion von Makrophagen und T-Zellen im Primärmelanom und im Wächterlymphknoten bei Melanompatienten mit lymphogener Metastasierung (05.09.2025)

AG Bazzi

Charlotte Meyer-Gerards successfully defended her Dr. rer. nat. thesis dissertation on July 10^th, 2024.

AG von Stebut

Jann Rusch: Bachelor of Science (Studiengang Biotechnologie der FH Aachen)

AG Zigrino

Maike Kümper, completed her Dr.rer.nat. thesis: “Role of stromal MMP14 and MMP3 in skin homeostasis” (04.2023) (Note 1/1)

AG Bazzi

Max Knörrich, completed his M.Sc. (10.08.2022)

AG Eming

Sabrina Satzinger, completed her Ph.D. “Regulators and effectors of type 2 immunity in skin homeostasis and regeneration” (12.2022)

AG Fabri

Kristin Knoke, completed her Ph.D. “The effect of Jak inhibition on innate host defense in human macrophages” (08.2022) 

AG Zigrino / Mauch

Elke Pach, completed her Ph.D. “Functional role of fibroblast-derived MMP-14 in tumor growth and metastasis” (05.2022)

AG Niessen

Dr Klaus Göbel - Completed PhD

AG Bazzi

16th March 2021 - Taim Nassr, Bachelor of Science

AG Zigrino / Mauch

Fabienne Cometto - Bachelor of Science (double degree) - Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, Applied Biology 

Luca Gaessler - Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences University of Cologne
 

AG Zigrino / Mauch

Fabienne Cometto completed her Bachelor thesis in Applied Biology (University of Applied Sciences, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg)
 

AG Bazzi

Mareike Damen successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis dissertation on 07.02.2020

Miriam Mack successfully defended her MSc dissertation on 17.03.2020

Cally Xiao successfully and remotely defended her Ph.D. thesis dissertation on 24.04.2020

AG Niessen

Jabiz Nafisi completed her Ph.D. in 2020.

Plácido Pereira completed his Ph.D. in 2020.

Hanyin Zhang completed her MSc in 2020.

AG Krieg

Katrin Schönborn successfully defended her PhD thesis:
Collagen XII in skin - its role as a functional and structural regulator of tissue homeostasis
 

AG Fabri

Juliana de Castro Kroner completed her Ph.D. in 2019.

AG Zigrino/Mauch

Meltem Barlin successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis dissertation on 22.10.2019