Thomas gave a career development talk for the CMCB Postdoc Community meeting, discussing his experiences building and maintaining a new master’s program at the University of Edinburgh! The meeting was an engaging discussion about a career step that many in the Postdoc Community are heading toward.

The Becker Group has a new preprint on bioRxiv! The paper, “Microglia signals to fibroblasts and neural progenitors to control regenerative neurogenesis after spinal cord injury in zebrafish” was spearheaded by Alberto Docampo-Seara, and shows how microglia restricts/controls the neurogenic potential of neural progenitors by direct signaling to them and also by an indirect interaction with fibroblasts.

The Becker Group has a new publication in Life Science Alliance! The article, titled “Microglia are essential for tissue contraction in wound closure after brain injury in zebrafish larvae”, was led by Francois El-Daher. The study found that following traumatic brain injury in larval zebrafish, that microglia accumulate within the injury site and exert force in the inside of the injury site to pull the wound closed.

Catherina and Thomas presented our group’s work on spinal cord regeneration in two talks at the EMBO | The Company of Biologists Workshop - Axonal Degeneration and Regeneration meeting at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Okinawa, Japan! Sofiia Ushakova, a master’s student in the Becker Group presented her thesis work on Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) at this exciting workshop in Japan.

Catherina gave the keynote lecture and Thomas helped judge posters and talks at the 4th International Meeting of Portuguese Spinal Cord Injury Researchers held in Lisbon, Portugal! Her talk discussed the role of macrophages in regenerative neurogenesis following spinal cord injury in zebrafish based on the Group’s recent work. The meeting was organized by the Instituto de Medicina Molecular (iMM) of the Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa (FMUL).

Once again this year, the Becker group will be showing you the beautiful world of zebrafish research at the CRTD as part of the Long Night of Science! This time, in addition to exciting insights into our research on spinal cord regeneration, you can expect lots of interactive tasks and stations for every age. You can find us on the third floor of the CRTD by following the zebrafish signs.

Marie Hoyer won the Dresden Excellence Award for her Master’s Thesis! Her project, "Tissue mechanics during spinal cord regeneration in zebrafish larvae,” was a collaborative project between the Becker Group and the group of Otger Campàs (Excellence Cluster Physics of Life), supervised by Stephen Enos (Becker Group) and with the substantial support of Shuo-Ting Yen (Campàs Group). The award is issued each year by the City of Dresden to four awardees, to recognize excellent scholarship at all academic levels (Bachelor’s, Master’s, Ph.D., Habilitation). Congratulations Marie!

Catherina takes on the role of director of the Center for Molecular and Cellular Bioengineering (CMCB) of TU Dresden.

Four of our Master’s students from this year all graduated today! Congratulations to Elena, Marie, Kim, and Aruzhan, who all celebrated a job well done and a significant milestone in the academic careers. Best of luck for your next adventures!

The Becker Group joined the fifth annual NCT/UCC-Benefizlauf (benefit run) to support cancer research! Organized by the Nationale Centrum für Tumorerkrankungen Dresden (NCT/UCC), members of the group contributed 26 kilometers to the day’s total!

The Becker Group again organized the zebrafish room at the CRTD for the Long Night of Science! This year, the demonstrations and activities were hosted in conjunction with the Campàs Group from the Physics of Life (PoL) Cluster of Excellence at the TU Dresden. Hundreds of visitors came to the CRTD to see the wide range of science taking place in the CMCB and at PoL.

At this year’s Life Science Campus Summer Conference, Elena Nicolay, who is completing her master’s thesis in the Becker Group under the supervision of Friederike Kessel, won the Audience Award for Best Scientific Content. She was presenting on her work, titled, "Dynamics of macrophage polarization in spinal cord regeneration in zebrafish larvae.” Congratulations Elena!

Finally, EMBO Regeneration 2022 (which had been postponed twice!) took place just outside Barcelona. Two Edinburgh Becker Group members, Tom (on the left in the poster picture) and Lizi, presented their data on posters and Catherina gave a talk. Other CRTD PIs and postgrads also spoke of their fab regeneration research (see Max Yun below) and we had a fantastic outing to the Fabra Observatory overlooking Barcelona.

The Becker and Ninov Groups hosted the zebrafish room at the Long Night of Science 2022! People of all ages visited the CRTD to learn about the interesting tools, model organisms, and research questions being used and studied across the CMCB. Zebrafish are important models at the CRTD for studying spinal cord regeneration, beta cell regeneration, central nervous system regeneration, bone regeneration, and neuroplasticity.

Catherina was interviewed by LaborJournal! She discussed spinal regeneration, our group’s exciting upcoming work with single-cell sequencing and ATAC-seq, and her decision to move to Dresden.

Back for the first time in person since 2019, the CMCB Summer Party was again held in person, and the Bowle contest returned. Dany entered her creation, “Melon Kiss,” and after a spirited debate between the judges, she took home the trophy for the Becker Group! Congratulations Dany!

Over the hills and through the caves to Uttewalder Grund! The Becker Group hiked the Uttewalder Grund Rundgang, with some homemade cake to start the day off.

Catherina gave her inaugural lecture at the Technische Universität Dresden! She shared the group’s focus on spinal regeneration and the new plans here in Dresden at the CRTD.

Prof. Catherina G. Becker will officially become an Alexander von Humboldt Professor today! The ceremony will be broadcast live by the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung from Berlin, today at 19:00 (CEST).

For everyone celebrating Easter today, Happy Easter from the Becker Lab! We hope that you have a wonderful holiday with friends, family, or whomever you are celebrating with. The Easter Bunny seems to have already visited the office here at the CRTD!