At the annual Dutch Atherosclerosis Society (DAS) meeting, Lobke received the award for Best Flash Talk for her presentation on the role of LXR in macrophage immune activation, while Ricky was awarded Best Poster Presentation for his work on the role of IRF1 in macrophage function. Congratulations to both!

Ricky Siebeler won the best presentation award on the annual Amsterdam institute for Immunology and Infectious diseases (AII) symposium for his presentation on Endogenous Retroviral Elements as regulators of macrophage activation. Congratulations!!

AtheroTalk with Noam Zelcer Noam shares his perspectives on the evolving field of lipid metabolism research. Besides his scientific insights, he encourages us to discuss our failures, which are “a feature of science, not a bug”. Another key message: “Define clear go/no-go milestones for your project”. If you are interested in his work, he currently has an open position for a PhD student as also discussed during this episode. Script-prep: Pelin Golforoush and Emiel van der Vorst Interviewer: Emiel van der Vorst https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/e13-noam-zelcer/id1780340626?i=1000708428204

Another great paper in collaboration on SPRING-S1P with Daniel Kober’s team (UTSW) is bow out in PNAS. Using a neat series of biochemical, structural and cellular studies, Ashley Bullington and Ilaria Micallo studied how the SPRING-S1P complex recognize its substrates and promotes their cleavage. You can get the paper on https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2426931122 or www.zelcerlab.eu

The AGEM PhD retreat was held on the 3 rd and 4 th of April in Garderen. The theme of the Research Institute was fully centered with interesting presentations by PhDs and guest speakers. Ilaria Micallo, one of our PhD candidates from Noam Zelcer’s group, obtained the Best Poster Award for her research on “Structural basis for substrate selectivity by site-one protease revealed by studies with a small molecule inhibitor” .

Karen and Panos got awarded the Amsterdam UMC Young Talent Fund . This fund awards young PhD talents a chance to further develop and enhance their skills, with the aim to provide the opportunity for PhD candidates to do an internship or follow a course at top international research institutes.

On Thursday 20th of March, Winnie Vos successfully defended her PhD thesis: Exploring the Therapeutic Potential of Immune Checkpoint Modulation in Preclinical Models of Inflammatory Diseases.

ZonMW project: How Do Liver Cells Process Cholesterol?