Projects with international impact from the field of medicine honored

This year, the TU Dresden has honored 22 projects and partnerships with special international impact, so-called international lighthouses. Among them are also four projects and partnerships of the Faculty of Medicine.

The projects were selected on the basis of various criteria, such as an outstanding research performance within the project and the attractiveness of the partner location due to outstanding teaching and educational opportunities or for the recruitment of international (young) scientists. Furthermore, the visibility of the network, the international reputation in general as well as in the specific field or research and the ranking of the partner institution were also taken into account.

The partnership of the Faculty of Medicine with Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, was awarded in the category "Partnerships". The cooperation, which has been in place since 2015, encompasses many levels of exchange and stands out for example due to the PhD Cotutelle program. In addition, Flinders University is a renowned location with an outstanding teaching. The award expresses recognition of this unique partnership and additional support from the TU Dresden and encourages further projects within the partnership.

No less than three international projects of the Faculty of Medicine were honored in the category "Professional Network I: Active Part of an International Network": the Global Platform for the Prevention of Autoimmune (Type 1) Diabetes (GPPAD), the Innate Immune Memory / Trained Immunity Consortium and Proton Therapy (EPTN) within OncoRay.

The Global Platform for the Prevention of Autoimmune (Type 1) Diabetes (GPPAD) is a consortium of several academic research institutions and clinics in Europe and was initiated in 2015. GPPAD aims to establish an international infrastructure for studies aimed at preventing the development of type 1 diabetes and is based at the CRTD. Numerous universities are part of the network, such as Lunds Universitet, Sweden, Medical University Warsaw, Poland, TU Munich, and the University of Oxford, United Kingdom.

Within the Innate Immune Memory / Trained Immunity Consortium, Prof. Chavakis from the Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine and his central contribution to the network were recognized. In particular, the active international network work with strong TUD participation including projects, publications as well as symposia on site with outstanding research performance was highlighted. Partner universities within the network include the Broad Institute at Harvard/ Boston, USA, Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, the University of Bonn and the Università di Napoli Federico II in Italy.

The proton therapy facility is located at the OncoRay of the Medical Faculty. The OncoRay is characterized by an almost unique interdisciplinarity between different research areas (medicine, biology, physics, data sciences) and a direct connection to the clinic. Furthermore, it is currently running several EU projects such as INSPIRE and PROTECT, which focus on proton therapy. In the field of particle therapy, the physicians and scientists are closely connected to the other European particle centers in the European Particle Therapy Network (EPTN) and act as coordinators in various work packages.

The award of the four networks and partnerships underlines the international orientation of the Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus and encourages further projects of this kind in the field of medicine.