Karnavi, our Master’s thesis student, was awarded a student-led research grant from the TU Dresden FOSTER - Funds for Student Research Program! Congratulations Karnavi!

Thomas, Dany, Denise, and Markus represented the Becker Group at this year’s NCT/UCC Charity Run (NCT/UCC Benefizlauf - FortSCHRITT gegen Krebs). This year’s participants ran a combined distance of 12,052 kilometers, an event record! If you would like to support the program, the organizers continue to accept donations here.

Özge successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis! She investigated the role of the matrix metalloproteinase Mmp14b in spinal cord repair. Özge did a great job presenting her findings and stood up to the insightful and intense questions from the external examiner Prof Leonor Saúde and the whole committee.

We are very proud: congratulations, Dr. Özge!

Luisa successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis! Luisa has been studying the role of a special cell state in the regenerating spinal cord of larval zebrafish (stay tuned for the preprint on bioRxiv to learn more!). She impressed her committee with the huge amount of data and rounded story.

Congratulations, Dr. Luisa! You make us very proud!

Catherina gave a plenary lecture on spinal cord regeneration in zebrafish at the Collaborative Academic Research Excellence (CARE) Conference 2025, organized by the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras! This year’s conference, “Molecules to Medicine: Bioengineering for One Health” focused on a range of biological scales, from structure to translation.

Stephen contributed a talk on the role of tissue mechanics in spinal cord regeneration to the Cell Physics 2025 conference hosted by Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. The program included a wide range of topics in biophysics, from mechanobiology, to machine learning!

Alberto presented a poster on his work which focuses on the role of immune signaling on regenerative neurogenesis after spinal cord injury at the 20th National Congress of the Spanish Society of Neuroscience in Gran Canaria, Spain. The program covered a wide variety of topics, from developmental biology to regeneration.

Catherina was invited to give a talk on “Complex intercellular signaling regulates spinal cord repair in zebrafish” at Institut Curie in Paris!

On June 20th, we took visitors behind the scenes of zebrafish research at the Long Night of Science Dresden — and what a night it was! From 5 PM until midnight, the 3rd floor of the CRTD was buzzing with curious minds of all ages. Together with the Ninov group, we joined forces to highlight how zebrafish are driving cutting-edge research at the CRTD.

On March 13, 2025, leading experts gathered for an insightful webinar on stem cell-based approaches for spinal cord injury repair. Hosted by FENS CHET and SfN’s Neuroscience Training Committee, the event featured groundbreaking discussions on neurogenesis, stem cell secretomes, and engineered neural stem cells.

We are thrilled to share that the Women in Life Sciences Symposium 2025 was a great success! Hosted at the CRTD in Dresden by Prof. Mareike Albert and Prof. Franziska Knopf, the event brought together an inspiring community of female scientists for an afternoon of insightful discussions and networking.

We are delighted to share that Dr. Rachel Branch has successfully defended her PhD thesis! Rachel was the final PhD student from our lab at The University of Edinburgh, marking the end of an era.