On Monday, Prof. Geisslinger, spokesman of Fraunhofer CIMD, opened the event with a presentation of the research cluster and an insight into the planned young researchers program.

This was followed by a keynote lecture by Prof. Dirnagl, head of the Department of Experimental Neurology at the Charité Berlin. In his lecture he presented the current challenges of translational research as well as data reproducibility and provided the participants with some solutions. At the end of the first day, the participants had the opportunity to get to know each other better and exchange ideas in a relaxed get-together.

On Tuesday, invited speakers offered an overview of various topics of translational medicine:

Prof. Burkhardt (University Hospital Frankfurt) gave the participants an insight into the pathophysiological basics of immune diseases; Dr. Stefan Wesarg (Fraunhofer IGD) presented various imaging possibilities in medicine as well as the challenges in the analysis of these data. Jil Sander (Fraunhofer IAIS) gave an overview of artificial intelligence in medicine and the resulting potentials and challenges. The afternoon continued with an overview of preclinical research and the identification and validation of drug candidates (Dr. Susanne Schiffmann, Fraunhofer IME), proof-of-concept studies in animal models (Dr. Natasja de Bruin, Fraunhofer IME) and the planning and execution of clinical studies (Dr. Tanja Roßmanith, Fraunhofer IME). Finally, Dr. Claudia Jentzsch from Novartis presented the position of the pharmaceutical industry in clinical research.

In the course of the event, young scientists of Fraunhofer CIMD were also given the opportunity to present their respective research cluster projects in a 5-minute project pitch.

The event was a successful prelude to the promotion of networking and cooperation among young scientists even beyond the current projects.