Kickoff Meeting of the MutRad Project in Essen

A planning and alignment meeting with project partners 

The project-kickoff meeting for the MutRad project took place on 24th June 2026 hosted by Dr. Aashish Soni from the Institute for Medical Radiation Biology at the University of Duisburg-Essen Medical School. The MutRad project aims to quantify the DNA damage caused by different types and intensities of radiation, and to characterize the alterations introduced by DNA repair mechanisms. 

The focus of this kickoff session was to present the previous work and individual capabilities and expertise to the project partners, and find opportunities to better align with each other. The meeting began with a pleasant welcome note from Dr. Aashish Soni, one of the organisers and hosts of the conference, followed by an introduction to the working standards and regulations of the project from Dr. Friederike Manig from PTKA at Karlsruhe. 

Following the introductions, the partners involved in the MutRad project presented talks and discussions based on their previous work. 

• Prof. Dr. Markus Löbrich from the Radiation Biology Department at TU Darmstadt presented a talk on Mutations Induced by Non-homologous End-joining (NHEJ) and showcased his group’s work on the role of the pathways of NHEJ in introducing mutations during DNA repair. 
• A discussion on the future of molecular cytogenetics with Next-Generation Sequencing was hosted by Dr. Aashish Soni from University of Duisburg-Essen Medical School, based on his group’s experiences to determine the most cost effective and efficient methods and vendors for the sequencing needs of the project. 
• Dr. Katja Kratz and Laureen Madre from GSI Darmstadt presented their plan of work and preliminary results on high-LET induced mutation signatures and how they are distinct from those caused by X-rays, detailing their experimental strategy. 

The ZMI and TU Dresden’s contributions to the project will be towards the bioinformatics analysis and data management in MutRad, which will be headed by Dr.-Ing. Markus Wolfien who discussed the data management strategy that would be used for the project, as well as linked to some of the ongoing and finished projects of ZMI like FAIRDOMHub and MIIHub that are relevant to the data management lifecycle of this project. This was followed by a presentation by Syed Alisamar Husain on their project Omics Integration for Mutation Prioritization as part of the bioinformatics analysis work package, which aims to develop a machine learning algorithm to rank mutations based on their deleteriousness with applications in precision oncology as well as radiation protection.