MMI Meeting "Microdissection – Micromanipulation – Imaging"

Prof. Dr. med. Danny Jonigk FRCPath received his doctoral degree from the Hannover Medical School (MHH) in 2005 with Summa cum laude for his work on “Epithelial microchimerism after kidney transplantations”, upon which he set out to establish his own lab(s). In 2008, he became the head of lung pathology at the MHH.
Since then Danny Jonigk has participated in numerous (inter)national research networks, became a fellow with the Royal College of Pathologists (UK), established the “Interstitial Lung Disease“ (ILD) board at MHH and he also runs the “Platform Pathology“ of the German Center of Lung Research (DZL). Since 2018, he is a full professor for thorax and transplantation pathology at the MHH.
His successful work on pulmonary diseases and organtransplantation has been funded by a multitude of research grants, such as the renowned grant of the European Research Council for the “Hanover experimental lung research project (XHaLe)”. Danny Jonigk also works as a consultant for diverse professional societies and has been honored by several awards and prizes.

Dr. Hannah Wyatt studied Biotechnology at the Fachhochschule Weihenstephan, Freising, Germany. She did her Diploma thesis at Mice&More GmbH&Co.KG in Hamburg before she completed an additional master thesis on “Transcriptome analysis of novel mouse intestinal tumourigenesis” at the School of Biosciences of the Cardiff University, UK.
She continued her career at Pfizer Ltd in Sandwich, UK as Scientist and later as a Senior Scientist in the Investigative Pathology Group where she had been selected from Drug Safety Research and Development to pursue a Pfizer funded part-time PhD on “TLR7 immune activation in toxicological relevant species” with the University of Cambridge, UK.
After receiving her PhD, Hannah Wyatt moved back to Germany in 2013 to work as Post-Doc in the Molecular Pathology Group at the Non-Clinical Drug Safety department at Boehringer-Ingelheim in Biberach where she established Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) facilities for routine use. With her expert knowledge in LCM as well as her extensive experience in tissue sample preparation and downstream molecular biology methods, she now holds a Scientist position in the Drug Discovery Sciences/ Histology Department where she is utilizing LCM technologies to study Gene and Protein expression across tissue sections.

Dr. Yelena Golubeva – Senior Scientist, Molecular pathology laboratory manager within Cancer Genomic Research Laboratory, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI, FNLCR, Leidos Biomedical Research. She is a former scientist with MedImmune, Inc and former leader of Laser Tissue Microdissection Core in Pathology-Histotechnology Laboratory of NCI-Frederick. Yelena has a Ph.D. in Entomology and Space and Aviation Medicine, and HT ASCP certification in histotechnology.
Ms. Golubeva has a vast experience in histological techniques and workflows, animal model genomic sample collection and preparation, immunostaining techniques and navigated hand microdissection of archival FFPE slides for molecular profiling studies. She has extensive working experience with Arcturus PixCell IIe, MMI (Molecular Machines & Industries), Arcturus XT and Leica LMD6000 LCM instruments, and successfully working on adaptation of LCM for the evolving molecular profiling platforms and different tissue types.
She is the author of multiple method chapters on histological and genomic sample preparation, mouse embryo collection for genomic studies, IHC sample preparation, and Laser Capture Microdissection, and more than 30 peer-reviewed papers. Ms. Golubeva has presented several LCM workshops at USA National Society for Histotechnology Symposiums and talks at various workshops and conferences.

Dr. Björn Krenz completed his PhD thesis about “Gene Silencing and the Abutilon mosaic virus” in 2007 at the University Stuttgart, which was followed by a post-doctoral position at the “International reference center for the genomics and diagnosis of viruses with small circular DNA”, Dept. of Molecular Biology and Virology of Plants, University of Stuttgart. From 2011 until 2014 Dr. Björn Krenz was a postdoctoral associate within the Dept. Plant Pathology & Plant-Microbe Biology, Cornell University, USA, then became a group leader at the FAU Erlangen, Germany. Since 2017 Dr. Björn Krenz leads the independent research group “VirusInteract” at the Leibniz institute “Deutsche Sammlung für Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen” in Braunschweig, Germany.
The aim of his research is to analyze and characterize the molecular mechanisms and interactions between plant cell & virus. Plant pathogens belonging to the families of Geminiviridae and Nanoviridae cause serious crop damage worldwide. These viruses have the capacity to re-program the cell to its favors by use of multifunctional virus proteins and interaction with host factors. He wants to identify these functions and interaction partners with special focus on suppression of host pathogen response and intra- and intercellular viral transport to gain basic insights into virus infection and cellular functions.

Dr. Gousset obtained her PhD at UC Davis and did post doctoral work at the Johns Hopkins University, NIH and the Pasteur Institute. She has a broad background in cellular biology, with specific training and expertise in microscopy, virology, molecular biology techniques and microproteomics. The main focus of her laboratory is on the role of tunneling nanotubes (TNTs), a novel mechanism of functional connectivity between cells, in the spreading of viruses, misfolded protein aggregates (leading to neurodegenerative diseases), as well as the role they may play in the proliferation and persistence of cancer.

Her lab has developed effective methods to identify the TNT proteome by exploring the limits of laser capture microdissection (LCM) and microproteomics and has overcome several major hurdles related to fixation and the small sample size of LCM, to develop a robust approach to collect the TNT proteome (as well as the proteomes of other membrane protrusions, i.e., filopodia, axons, dendrites, and growth cones). Karine’s lab also developed a novel binary flow cytometry assay in which to test identified proteins for their ability to affect TNT formation and function thereby streamlining the identification of functionally important TNT proteins from our microproteomic data.