CECAD is offering travel grants for early researchers of CECAD labs. The travel grants are announced at the beginning of the year. It is possible to apply for trips made in advance as well as for trips planned in the second half of the year, however, the decision will be made once after the application deadline.
These annual travel grants provide crucial financial assistance to present their research, network with leading experts, and stay updated with the latest advancements in their fields. Attending conferences is a valuable experience, offering the chance to gain feedback on their work, explore new research collaborations, and enhance professional skills.
Please find all further information on deadlines and application requirements in the attached call.
Please apply until July 15th, 2024 by sending all required documents as 1 PDF to ottensf[at]uni-koeln.de
2024
2023
2022
2019
2018
The CECAD Postdoc Grant offers funding to postdocs with the goal of pursuing an academic career which can provide the basis for scientific independence as a group leader. Fellowship holders get a bench fee of 10.000 EUR per year and the salary for a technical assistant for the duration of 2 years.
Two Postdocs from CECAD groups, Shuntaro Izawa (Brüning lab) and Anne Petzold (Korotkova lab), were selected to receive a full Senior Postdoc Grant.
During his PhD, Dr. Izawa focused on memory regulation during sleep, especially hippocampal memory forgetting process in REM sleep state. After becoming a postdoc in the Brüning lab at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research, he started to study neuronal control of metabolism. Currently, he is working on neuronal mechanisms that link sleep and metabolism.
"I am trying to develop a new research area by combining my previous research background in sleep with metabolism. This CECAD grant provides me with the opportunity to lead a small team, which will not only help me accelerate my study, but also train me as an independent researcher."
Anne Petzold is a postdoctoral researcher in the Korotkova lab. During her MSc, Dr. Petzold focused on the role of neurotrophins for amygdala and hippocampal brain function throughout the aging process in mouse models of BDNF deficiency. In the UK, she joined the lab of Paul Bolam and developed computational routines to analyse the interaction of neuronal activity and brain-wide oscillations that drive brain state-dependent transitions between neuronal activity patterns. During her PhD, she discovered and characterised a novel protein that integrates circadian and homeostatic sleep drive in Drosophila Melanogaster.
Dr. Petzold joined the lab of Tatiana Korotkova in 2017 to uncover neuronal mechanisms that regulate innate behaviours. Last year, Dr. Petzold published in Cell Metabolism novel routes for brain-body interactions in the state-dependent adaptation of innate behavior. She particularly focuses on the multifaceted functions of leptin for the regulation of nutritional and non-nutritional behavior and its ability to counteract anxiety-induced, maldapative behavioral responses in health and disease. Currently, Dr. Petzold aims to uncover neurotrophic plasticity mechanisms in hypothalamic brain areas that enable encoding of obesogenic environments and their association with unhealthy eating habits.
"The CECAD senior PostDoc grant enables me to finalize my study on the neural networks of eating habits. This work will be the basis of my own future research program and provide the starting point for future grant applications to start my own research group. In my own lab I will strive to understand how experience shapes neural networks that regulate habitual behaviors through synaptic plasticity mechanisms.“
Seda Koyuncu (Vilchez Lab) and Weiyi Chen (Brüning Lab) receive seed funding to implement independent scientific projects.
Seda Koyuncu is a postdoctoral researcher in the Vilchez Lab where she continued her research after receiving her doctoral degree in February 2019.
During her PhD, she focused on the mechanisms suppressing proteostasis collapse in pluripotent stem cells and its demise in Huntington’s disease. In parallel, she also worked on elucidating the role of E3 ligases in the stem cell identity and in the aging process using both embryonic stem cells and C. elegans as models. Currently, she is working on a system-wide characterization of ubiquitination changes in the whole proteome during the aging process using C.elegans as model organism. Specifically, she is aiming to investigate the impact of remodeling in ubiquitination events with age on organismal aging and longevity.
This year, Koyuncu published in Nature that selective proteasomal degradation of some structural and functional proteins such as EPS-8 and IFB-2 are essential regulator for longevity. She will further characterize the role of these proteins in aging and age-related phenotype. Furthermore, Koyuncu is planning to investigate the role of this remodeling in ubiquitination during aging in age-associated diseases such as Huntington’s disease. This project will mediate the determination of differential regulation of ubiquitination during aging which can provide understanding the underlying molecular and cellular mechanism of aging and age-related disease.
"My passion and commitment are towards a career in academic scientific research. The CECAD Postdoc grant will provide the basis for future grant applications. Moreover, I believe that by providing time and resources to develop my ideas and experiments independently, this grant may be helpful to establish my own independent research group in future."
Weiyi Chen is a postdoctoral researcher in the Brüning Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research. Bevor, he obtained his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Pablo Enriori and Professor Michael Cowley at Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute in Australia.
His PhD research project was centered around the crosstalk between the brain and metabolically active organs such as the skeletal muscles and liver in terms of glucose metabolism and how these interactions can be perturbed in obesity. Specifically, he described the role for alpha‐melanocyte stimulating hormone in glucose regulation through melanocortin-5 receptor expressed in skeletal muscle. In a separate collaborative work with Dr. Eglantine Balland, Weiyi and colleagues showed that the reduction insulin action in the hypothalamus contributes to unconstrained glucose production by the liver in obese mice. At the Brüning lab he is working on uncovering the influence of circadian rhythm on the Brain to liver axis to regulate metabolism during energy deprivation.
“It is the accumulation of small successes and learning from rejections throughout my career as a scientist, which led me to explore academia as a possible route. The constant curiosity about my research kept me moving forward, exploring and experimenting different options. Getting this postdoc grant has provided me with a unique opportunity to pursue ideas of my own within a set budget. This grant is undoubtedly an important step in the right direction that is to lead an independent research group in the future. This grant allows me to lead a small team, experience what an independent research group entail and develop the characteristics of my future research group.”
Two Postdocs from CECAD groups, Matthias Rübsam (Niessen lab) and Gisela Slaats (Nephrolab), were selected to receive a full and a partial Senior Postdoc Grant.
Matthias Rübsam was selected for the project "Cytoskeletal control of epidermal differentiation and barrier function in healthy, diseased and aged skin". During his period as a PhD student and postdoctoral researcher Matthias' main research interest has been in understanding interactions between different types of living cells in the lower epidermis and how molecular mechanisms control shape and positioning of tight junctions within this tissue which ultimately leads to a barrier formation against dehydration and external challenges.
With this new project he will transfer his knowledge about cell- and tissue cooperation of lower epidermal layers to understanding the formation of the stratum corneum, the uppermost epidermal layer. While working on this grant project, Matthias will focus on the formation of this layer and interaction between still living and dead cells, called corneocytes. He will further analyze cause and consequence of alterations of the stratum corneum in diseased and aged skin. To implement this project, he received 10.000 EUR bench fee and the salary of a technical assistant for the duration of 2 years.
Gisela Slaats applied with a project called " DNA replication stress and genome instability: Mechanisms of chronic renal degeneration and ageing". During her work as PhD student in the Netherlands and postdoctoral researcher and EMBO fellow in the Nephrolab, Gisela investigated the molecular and cell biological pathomechanisms underlying renal ciliopathies. She contributed significantly to linking ciliopathy-related renal degeneration and fibrosis to DNA damage response signaling.
With this new project she continues to systematically investigate the impact of DNA replication stress and genome instability in tubular epithelial cells on the maintenance of kidney architecture and kidney function, and on renal ageing, as well as on the development of future therapeutic strategies. CECAD will support her project with a bench fee of 10.000 EUR per year for the duration of 2 years.
For any questions regarding the Travel and Senior Postdoc Grants, please contact Dr. Franziska Ottens.
Dr. Franziska Ottens
Managing Coordinator Education,
Career Development & Diversity
franziska.ottens[at]uni-koeln.de
CECAD Central Office
Room: 1.040
CECAD Research Center
Joseph-Stelzmann-Str. 26
50931 Köln