May 25, 2016

New book with an angle on how patients can profit from inflammatory eye disease research

Cooperation between specialists is clearly crucial for gaining excellent results in the laboratory, and without these, there is no foundation for meaningful change in patient care. However, a deep and connected understanding of all the entities involved and the ability to communicate this understanding are also crucial in the process […]
May 2, 2016

How to steer a useful conversation with a protein: Interferon beta as novel therapy target for age-related macular degeneration (AMD)

A collaboration of FOR 2240 project 6 „Microglia in AMD“ (Principal Investigator Prof.  Thomas Langmann) and the Bayer-University of Cologne Graduate Program of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (PhD student Anika Lückoff), together with neuro-immunology experts from Freiburg (Prof. Marco Prinz) and Hannover (Prof. Ulrich Kalinke), identified a novel role of […]
May 2, 2016

A visit from Massachusetts

On April 26th, 2016, the DFG research unit FOR 2240 hosted Dr. Bruce Ksander (center) from Massachusetts at the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Cologne. Dr. Ksander received his Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Illinois while studying the immune response to herpes keratitis in the laboratory of Dr. […]
April 14, 2016

Professor Heping Xu explains para-inflammation in the retina

Heping Xu (MD, PhD) is Professor of Ocular Immunology in the Centre for Experimental Medicine at Queen’s University Belfast, UK. He was trained as an ophthalmologist and together with his former teacher and colleague John Forrester, he developed the concept of para-inflammation, a predisposing condition for many age-related diseases of […]
April 5, 2016

Working together to unveil Trojan-horse-style cancer cell travel into the eye

Several individual projects of the research unit FOR 2240 have produced an important collaborative paper: “The Trojan Horse Tale Revisted: An Eye on Metastatic Spread of Carcinoma Cells”. This paper was acknowledged as the cover contribution in the February 2016 issue of the well-respected journal Cancer Immunology Research, volume 4 […]
March 31, 2016

A visit from Iowa

The Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Cologne was the proud host of Dr. Oliver W. Gramlich, Ph.D. from the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and The Stephen A. Wynn Institute for Vision Research at the University of Iowa, USA. On Thursday, January 28th, 2016, Prof. Cursiefen (right), […]
March 31, 2016

FOR 2240 members among the top German-speaking ophthalmologic clinician-scientists

Laborjournal recently published a list of the top 50 most-cited ophthalmologists in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Researchers and clinicians were included in the list. Four individuals from the Dept. of Ophthalmology at the University of Cologne were in the top 50: Prof. Cursiefen, Prof. Kirchhof, Prof. Bachmann and Prof. Fauser. […]
March 9, 2016

Guest scientists from Asia in Project 1

The FOR 2240 research unit now has two international scholars on board: Ms. Yanghong Hou, MD, from China and Mr. Viet Nhat Hung Le, MD, from Vietnam. Ms. Hou did her undergraduate work in Medicine (Bachelor) and Ophthalmology (Master) at Tongji University in her hometown of Shanghai and is working […]
February 16, 2016

Finnish Academy Professor Kari Alitalo visits FOR 2240

Lymph-angiogenesis expert Kari Alitalo, a world-leading and widely cited cancer researcher who is now Director of the Wihuri Research Institute in Helsinki, Finland, addressed a lively audience on January 27th, 2016 on the topic of “Novel roles of lymphatics in the eye, the brain and in tumor metastasis”. The talk […]