Post-Doctoral Track

Academic publishing: Navigating peer review on your own for the first time

Prof. Dr. Rory E. Morty

Professor and Chair, Department of Translational Pulmonology, UKHD, Heidelberg (Germany), Chief Editor European Respiratory Reviews, TLRCollege Chair

Prof. Morty is the Chair of the Department of Translational Pulmonology at the UKHD. Prof. Morty was born and educated in South Africa, completed a Fellowship in Infectious Disease at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven U.S.A., and was then recruited to the Department of Pulmonology at the University of Gießen School of Medicine. After a 10-year stint as Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Prof. Morty was recruited as Department Chair at the UKHD. For the purposes of explaining peer review in the lung science/pulmonary medicine arena to our audience, Prof. Morty brings with him his experience as former Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, current Associate Editor of Physiological Reviews, and current Chief Editor of the European Respiratory Review, as well as his experience as former Committee member and current Chair-elect of the Publications Committee of the American Physiological Society.

What the European Respiratory Society looks for in a grant application

Asst. Prof. Dr. Agnes Boots, PhD.

Fellowships and Awards Director-elect, European Respiratory Society

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, the Netherlands

Dr. Boots completed her PhD at the Maastricht University, the Netherlands and later received the prestigious RESPIRE1 Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship to conduct research in Burlington, USA and University of Düsseldorf, Germany. Currently, she is an assistant professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology of Maastricht University. Dr. Boots’ research interests include oxidant-related lung damage and the use of volatile organic compounds to diagnose and monitor lung diseases. She is the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Fellowships and Awards Director-elect and a member of the ERS Science Council.

What’s next? Reflections on a career track in industry

Prof. Dr. Matthew J. Thomas, PhD

Head of Immunology & Respiratory Research at Boehringer Ingelheim, Germany

Visiting Professor at Department of Life Sciences at University of Bath, United Kingdom

At Boehringer Ingelheim, Dr. Thomas leads a department focused on discovering therapeutics for lung repair and regeneration. His extensive experience in respiratory research includes study of pulmonary arterial hypertension, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, cystic fibrosis, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. His work in drug discovery spans from target finding, pathways investigation, pathophysiology, translational pre-clinical systems/biomarkers and the route into patients. Additionally, Dr. Thomas has served as member and leader of several international multi-disciplinary pharmaceutical research teams.

Experimental animal research and animal welfare: How to get your animal experimental proposal accepted in the first round!

Dr. Verena Rickert-Zacharias, PhD

Scientific Coordinator, Department of Translational Pulmonology & Institute for Human Genetic, UKHD, Heidelberg, Germany

Dr. Rickert-Zacharias received her PhD from the University of Heidelberg in collaboration with the EMBL (Heidelberg) in 2019. She transitioned from postdoc to Scientific Coordinator of the Department of Translational Pulmonology at UKHD in 2021, and in 2022 also joined the Institute for Human Genetics at the UKHD, where she participates in diagnostics and variant analysis for the Molecular Tumor Board (MTB) in Heidelberg, Mannheim and Heilbronn.

DZL Biobanks: What biological material is where, what can I use it for, and how do I get it?

Dr. Marc Schneider, PhD

Biobank Manager, Lung Biobank Heidelberg

Translational Research Unit, Thoraxklinik, Heidelberg, Germany

Dr. Schneider received his PhD in virology at University Medical Center Mainz in 2011. He joined the Translational Research Unit (STF) at Thoraxklinik in 2012, where he currently manages the Lung Biobank Heidelberg. The main emphasis at the STF and the Lung Biobank Heidelberg is interdisciplinary support and promotion of translational lung research projects. Additionally, the STF offers a broad methodological spectrum (such as gene expression analyses, primary cell culture models) to support research projects within and beyond the DZL.

Ethics in science and good scientific practice, or the art of speaking up

Dr. Leonid Schneider, PhD

Independent science journalist and cartoonist, For Better Science

Dr. Schneider received his PhD in biology at the University of Düsseldorf in 2008 and conducted research in cell biology, stem cells and cancer at University of Cologne, the Fondazione Istituto FIRC di Oncologia Molecolare in Milan, Technical University Darmstadt and MPI for Polymer Research. Since 2015, he works as an independent science journalist and is best known for his blog For Better Science, which covers research integrity and ethics, especially in the biomedical sciences and gives a voice to concerned scientists unable to openly speak out elsewhere.