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Division of Cancer Research

Department of Thoracic Surgery

News

19.12.2023 - Lab-Outing Darts

The rain gets colder: holiday season is coming up ! For our christmas lab outing, we all go for dinner & darts tonight.

01.12.2023 - Welcome !

Today, we are happy to (finally) welcome Yagmur Öykü Carus to our lab as a new graduate student. For her PhD, she will explore the functional impact and the druggability of FGFR point mutations in high throughput.

28.11.2023 - Lab-Outing Einstein & FreiSpiel

Tonight, we will celebrate Sven's birthday at Cafe Einstein and then move to FreiSpiel for the rest of the evening.

16.11.2023 - EMBO Cancer Genomics

Today, Carla presents her exciting project on the druggability of FGFR point mutations in a talk at the EMBO Cancer Genomics Meeting in Heidelberg.

18.10.2023 - Lab-Outing Bowling

Cancer Research goes Bowling tonight...

10.10.2023 - Accepted

Great news: Giulia's paper on the combination of DNA demethylation with ATRA to treat lung cancer cells has been accepted today for publication by the International Journal of Cancer!

01.10.2023 - MOTI-VATE

Today, the new class of the prestigious MOTI-VATE program for medical students starts and we are very happy to report that Luise Viardot, an M.D. student in our lab, has been selected this year and is supported by the program.

05.09.2023 - Lab-Outing FreiSpiel

We are resuming our lab outings after the pandemic... fine Indian food for dinner and then exciting games at FreiSpiel.

25.07.2023 - Dr. Giulia Pelos

It's a PhD ! Congratulations to Giulia for successfully defending her PhD today - and all the best wishes for her future postdoc at a renown institute in the UK !

20.07.2023 - Science Slam

Congratulations to Avantika - she has won the third place in the ZTZ + IMITATE Science Slam 2023 !

15.06.2023 - Welcome !

Today, we welcome Angela Wanninger as a new technician to our lab. 

01.05.2023 - The Scientist - Synonymous Mutations in Cancer

Again, our research has attracted international attention:

Today, an article about synonymous mutations in cancer appeared in the popular science journal The Scientist - and we are happy for the increased visibility of this important, but under-researched topic of non-canonical mutations.

01.03.2023 - The Scientist - Long non-coding RNA & Microproteins in Cancer

Today, an article about our research on long non-coding RNAs and microproteins in cancer appeared in the popular science journal The Scientist.

16.02.2023 - Accepted

Our collaboration partner Nicolas Gunkel sends good news: our manuscript entitled "Low level of antioxidant capacity biomarkers but not target overexpression predicts vulnerability to ROS-inducing drugs" has been accepted for publication in Redox Biology.

19.12.2022 - Christmas Market

After all these Corona years, we look forward to our christmas outing tonight - a visit to Freiburg's Christmas Market followed by a nice dinner right next to the Freiburger Münster.

07.12.2022 - Accepted

The manuscript from Varshni and Astrid has been accepted for publication in Cancers today describing the proteome-wide screening for RNA-dependent proteins in lung cancer cells using the R-DeeP approach. The data is also available in our updated R-DeeP2 database.

31.10.2022 - Farewell

The end of an era - Ksenia, one of the founding members of our lab in Freiburg moves on to new challengs after successful publication of her paper and defence of her PhD. We thank her for all that she has done in and for our group and wish her all the best for the bright future ahead of her.

10.10.2022 - Accepted

Great news from Cancer Letters: Ksenia's paper on CRISPRi screening for coding and non-coding essentiality factors has been accepted for publication! The most exciting finding is the role of the protein CASP8AP2 in lung cancer cells.

26.-28.09.2022 - Retreat

Not in the lab these days ... the Diederichs' labs from Heidelberg and Freiburg spend their retreat in Monastery Bühl to discuss new ideas and plan exciting new projects.

11.04.2022 - Accepted

Today, Avantika's paper on the use of chimeric oligonucleotides merging the guide RNA and the repair template for precision genome editing using CRISPR to introduce specific point mutations has been accepted for publication in RNA Biology. Congratulations and thank you to everyone who contributed to this project!

27.10.2021 - Dr. Myacheva

Congratulations to Ksenia, who successfully defended her PhD today!

...and we celebrate with a lab "meeting" in Heidelberg from the DKFZ to the philosophers' path to the old town...

18.10.2021 - Pub Quiz

Our entire group joined forces in the Pub Quiz of O'Kelly's in Freiburg... and we made third place among 38 teams, so congratulations and thanks to everyone who joined and answered tricky questions from Charles Montgomery Burns to Franz Ferdinand.

07.07.2021 - Grants nonstop

Good news from the DFG:

Our research proposal on studying the role of nonstop extension mutations in tumor suppressor genes has been fully granted!

We are looking forward to continue our work on this novel class of mutations in cancer for another three years which started with our discovery of them in the tumor suppressor gene SMAD4 (Dhamija et al., Nat Cell Biol 2020).

If you are also interested in this mutation class, also visit our database NonstopDB.

07.04.2021 - Good news "migrates"...

Good news from "Molecular Oncology":
Today, our study on novel factors in lung cancer cell migration using the "MigExpress" approach has been accepted for publication.
Congratulations and many thanks to everyone who contributed - especially to the first authors Jagriti and Andrea!

31.12.2020 - 5 x 1000

At the end of this year, we are happy to learn that the Web of Science now lists five of our publications with more than 1000 citations: our discovery of the important functional role of the long non-coding RNA MALAT in lung cancer metastasis has now also reached this level. 

We would like to thank all our fellow researchers for their interest and acknowledging our work by frequently citing us.

Also, all our publications have been again cited far more than 1000 times in the year 2020 for the sixth year in a row.

Here are the five most frequently cited front runners with more than 1000 citations each:

T Gutschner, M Hämmerle, M Eißmann, J Hsu, Y Kim, G Hung, AS Revenko, G Arun, M Stentrup, M Groß, M Zörnig, AR MacLeod, DL Spector, S Diederichs: "The non-coding RNA MALAT1 is a critical regulator of the metastasis phenotype of lung cancer cells"
Cancer Research (2013) 73: 1180-1189

P Ji*, S Diederichs*, W Wang, S Böing, R Metzger, PM Schneider, N Tidow, B Brandt, H Buerger, E Bulk, M Thomas, WE Berdel, H Serve, C Müller-Tidow: "MALAT-1, a novel non-coding RNA, and Thymosin b4 predict Metastasis and Survival in early-stage Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer"
Oncogene (2003) 22: 8031-804

J Winter*, S Jung*, S Keller, RI Gregory, S Diederichs: "Many roads to maturity: microRNA biogenesis pathways and their regulation"
Nature Cell Biology (2009) 11: 228-234

T Gutschner, S Diederichs: "The Hallmarks of Cancer: A long non-coding RNA point of view"
RNA Biology (2012) 9: 703-719

S Maheswaran*, LV Sequist*, S Nagrath*, L Ulkus, B Brannigan, C Collura, E Inserra, S Diederichs, AJ Iafrate, DW Bell, S Digumarthy, A Muzikansky, D Irimia, J Settleman, RG Tompkins, TJ Lynch, M Toner, DA Haber: "Detecting Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Mutations in Circulating Tumor Cells from Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer"
New England Journal of Medicine (2008) 359: 366-377

24.12.2020 - Happy holidays

Dear friends and colleagues:

We would like to wish you all happy holidays and all the best for the new year 2021.

While we all faced challenges during the corona pandemic this year and certainly all hope for a better year in 2021, we are also happy and a little proud to report, that we had scientifically a very productive and fruitful year of 2020 with high-rankling publications, lots of exciting new data and a patent application filed - so, we would like to thank everyone who supported us and contributed to our research.

17.10.2020 - Accepted

Nucleic Acids Research has accepted our manuscript on the RBP2GO database today for the next database issue in 2021.
Congratulations to Maiwen, Elsa & Ralf for creating this great resourse... have a look and find out a ot about RNA-binding proteins, their properties, their identification in more than a 100 datasets from 13 different species as well as their association with molecular mechanisms, biological processes and cellular components.

12.10.2020 - Two in one day ... Accepted

Two papers accepted in one day:

Congratulations to Yanhong for his manuscript on the new database circ2GO linking circular RNA expression, gene ontology and microRNA binding sites, which has been accepted for publication in Cancers today.
Perfect timing - since we need to say farewell to Yanhong next week.

More good news come from our collaboration partner Kannanganattu Prasanth from Illinois: the paper on the long non-coding RNA SUNO1 and its role in cell cycle progression has been accepted today by eLIFE. Congratulations, as well!

27.07.2020 - Publication in Nature Cell Biology

And here it is:

Today, Nature Cell Biology has published our study on nonstop extension mutations in human cancer and their exemplary effect on the tumor suppressor gene SMAD4, where nonstop extensions found in pancreatic and colon cancer patients lead to the complete loss of the protein due to proteasomal degradation via a degron in the C-terminal extension of mutated protein.

With this publication, our series of publications has reached another peak - with five publications in renown journals within the last 13 months:

S Dhamija*, CM Yang*, J Seiler, K Myacheva, M Caudron-Herger, A Wieland, M Abdelkarim, Y Sharma, M Riester, M Groß, J Maurer, S Diederichs: "A Pan-Cancer Analysis reveals Nonstop Extension Mutations causing SMAD4 Tumor Suppressor Degradation"
Nature Cell Biology (2020) epub

M Gandhi, M Groß, JM Holler, SA Coggins, N Patil, JH Leupold, M Munschauer, M Schenone, CR Hartigan, H Allgayer, B Kim, S Diederichs: "The lncRNA lincNMR regulates nucleotide metabolism via a YBX1 - RRM2 axis in cancer"
Nature Communications (2020) 11: 3214

M Caudron-Herger, E Wassmer, I Nasa, AS Schultz, J Seiler, AN Kettenbach, S Diederichs: "Identification, quantification and bioinformatic analysis of RNA-dependent proteins by RNase treatment and density gradient ultracentrifugation using R-DeeP"
Nature Protocols (2020) 15: 1338-1370

Y Sharma*, M Miladi*, S Dukare*, K Boulay*, M Caudron-Herger, M Groß, R Backofen, S Diederichs: "A pan-cancer analysis of synonymous mutations"
Nature Communications (2019) 10: 2569

M Caudron-Herger, SF Rusin, ME Adamo, J Seiler, V Schmid, E Barreau, AN Kettenbach, S Diederichs: "R-DeeP: Proteome-wide and Quantitative Identification of RNA-dependent Proteins by Density Gradient Ultracentrifugation"
Molecular Cell (2019) 75: 184-199

26.06.2020 - Accepted !!!!!

Finally, a two year journey comes to a fruitful end:

Today, our manuscript on nonstop mutations in cancer has been accepted for publication in Nature Cell Biology.

We are thrilled and relieved and congratulate all participants and authors on the study lead by Sonam Dhamija... with special recognition going to Jeanette for the last strenous rounds of revisions.

05.06.2020 - Accepted

Again, good news - and a paper celebration via videoconferencing:

Nature Communications has accepted our study on a novel lncRNA called lincNMR, which regulates nucleotide metabolism via its interaction with YBX1 and regulating essential factors for dNTP synthesis like RRM2, TK1 or TYMS.

Congratulations to Minakshi - and all the best for her postdoc in the USA.

Additionally, also our collaboration partners could report the acceptance of two original articles in Nucleic Acids Research on the MutaRNA tool for RNA structure prediction of single nucleotide mutations and in Cancers on the role of MALAT1 in amoeboid migration.

23.04.2020 - Accepted

Our manuscript on the landscape of circular RNAs in lung adenocarcinoma has been accepted today for publication in Cancers.

Congratulations to the entire circRNA in lung cancer team - especially to the three shared first authors Nele, Yanhong and Anne!

08.03.2020 - Award for R-DeeP

Another great honor for our lab - and especially for Dr. Maiwen Caudron-Herger, the first author of the R-DeeP paper published in Molecular Cell in 2019:

Out of 413 applications, Maiwen and the R-DeeP paper have been selected for the

2020 SCBT Investigator Award

This award is given out only once per year based on scientific significance, scientific impact, experiment design and publication quality - so we feel truly honored that our paper was selected and congratulate Maiwen wholeheartedly!

Further projects in our lab successfully pursue our novel concept of RNA dependence. We find and characterize the impact of RNA in unexpected processes in the cell. If you are interested in the method, please also consult our recent detailed protocol published in Nature Protocols.

24.02.2020 - R-DeeP Protocol published

Today, our Nature Protocol for the R-DeeP approach to study RNA-dependent proteins has finally appeared online which should enable researchers around the world to successfully use this method and analyze the data obtained:

Nature Protocols - R-DeeP

31.01.2020 - Welcome & Farewell

Yesterday, we said farewell to Nele - and wish her all the best for her future endeavors in Belgium...and of course, we all look forward to see her joint manuscript with Yanhong and Anne published in the near future.

On the other hand, we welcome Giulia back in our lab as a graduate student who will focus on epigenetic therapy options for lung cancer jointly with the lab of Michael Lübbert: Welcome & all the best !

08.12.2019 - Funded

Excellent news for our project on RNA-dependent functions in the Cancer cell:

Today, we received a positive funding decision from the German Cancer Aid (Deutsche Krebshilfe) !

PhD student applications interested in the molecular analysis of RNA-dependent proteins in cancer are welcome.

29.10.2019 - Accepted

Good news from Nature Protocols today: we are happy that we can share our detailed R-DeeP protocol for the identification of RNA-dependent proteins including the experimental approach as well as the bioinformatic analysis with the scientific community!

Thanks to Maiwen and everyone who has contributed to this publication!

30.08.2019 - Farewell

Today, we sadly say goodbye to Sonam with a lab outing to the city with guests from Heidelberg and alumni - all came to wish all the best to Sonam as founding member of our Freiburg lab. Thank you for all your hard work, your excellent ideas, your help to so many projects and your inspiration !  

09.07.2019 - Accepted

Our collaboration partner Manfred Jung sends good news: our cooperative manuscript on a novel Jumonji inhibitor has just been accepted for publication in ACS Chemical Biology. Congratulations !

16.05.2019 - Accepted

Again - excellent news:

Our manuscript on synonymous mutations in cancer has just been accepted for publication in Nature Communications !

Thanks to all contributors to this study - both, from our lab as well as from the Backofen lab in Freiburg.

Please check out the associated database SynMICdb to find and analyze synonymous mutations in a pan-Cancer panel.

17.04.2019 - Lab Outing

"FR 04" - formerly known as "L666" or simply "our lab" - is out again:
Today, we go to the exciting place of Denzlingen and play Minigolf with 3D glasses on under black light... this is not only great fun, but also guarantees a number of great pictures of our group. 
Afterwards, we take advantage of now having a "true Italian" in our midst and go for an authentic Italian dinner.

11.04.2019 - Accepted

And here is a big one:

Our manuscript on RNA Dependence has just been accepted for publication in Molecular Cell !

We are very happy and look forward to pursuing this new concept of RNA-dependent protein complexes further in the near future - job advertisements will be coming up...

CONGRATULATIONS first and foremost to Maiwen, who drives this project successfully, but also to all other contributors to the R-DeeP project in our lab as well as our collaboration partner in Dartmouth, Arminja Kettenbach, and her team.

You can already use our database to look for your favorite protein and its RNA Dependence in the R-DeeP database. This also mprovides a comprehensive resource for studies of RNA-binding proteins compiling results from 19 studies in one user-friendly spot.

Stay tuned - there will hopefully be more soon...

04.03.2019 - Accepted

News from Copenhagen: together with our collaboration partner Anders Lund, we just published a study about lncRNAs linked to autophagy in Oncogene - congratulations to Anders and his team.

24.12.2018 - Happy Holidays

Happy holidays and all the best wishes for the new year - to everyone interested in and contributing to and generously supporting our research to understand the RNA biology of lung Cancer and tumor genetics.

18.12.2018 - Christmas Lab Outing

One week to go - so, we also go on our Christmas Lab Outing. This year, we go Bowling and have dinner in between the strikes and spares. And one of our future lab members even won a game...

17.12.2018 - Accepted

Sonam's study about the role of the lncRNA linc00261 and its neighboring gene FOXA2 in lung cancer development and metastasis as well as in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and lung cancer cell migration has been accepted in the new pertinent journal in our field: Non-coding RNA. Congratulations !

28.11.2018 - Magical Lab Outing

Tonight, we will watch the second part of the Magical Creatures in 3D and then have a drink on Sven's birthday last week. Lucky us that we have Ksenia, who can enlighten us and fill us in on the details we missed in the movie... 

17.11.2018 - Accepted

The end of a long journey: Anna's manuscript on the role of linc00673 in lung cancer cell senescence has been accepted today at RNA Biology - congratulations and thanks to everyone who contributed over the years.

01.11.2018 - Microprotein CASIMO1 in Breast Cancer ... quite some attention

Just three months ago, we published our study on the functional role of the microprotein CASIMO1 in breast cancer (Oncogene 2018).
Within this short period, the article has already received a lot of attention ranking in th 96th percentile of similarly aged publications:http://www.nature.com/articles/s41388-018-0281-5/metrics

Moreover, a figure from the CASIMO1 paper has been selected as "Picture of the Week" by Bild der Wissenschaft: https://www.wissenschaft.de/bildervideos/bild-der-woche/gruene-winzlinge-befeuern-krebs/ .

15.10.2018 - Accepted

Today, our review article on RNA motifs has been accepted for publication in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

19. - 21.09.2018 - Retreat in the Black Forest

These days, you will find us hiking and discussing science in Altglashütten in the Black Forest ... and really enjoying the weather on our joint retreat of the Heidelberg and the Freiburg labs.

17.09.2018 - 1000th citation of MALAT1

And our paper on the initial discovery of MALAT1 (Oncogene 2003) has reached another milestone in the Web of Science: 1000 citations !
Thank you to everyone who acknowledges our research in this way.

12.09.2018 - Publon Awards for Peer Review

Again, Sven has been recognized by Publons for his efforts in peer reviewing with awards in the categories as a top reviewer in "General Science" (worldwide #8), "Biology & Biochemistry" (#29) and "Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology" (#30). 

31.07.2018 - MALAT1 - the first ncRNA in the Cancer Gene Census

MALAT1 - the long non-coding RNA, which we first discovered and named as a marker associated with lung cancer metastasis (Oncogene 2003) and later characterized as an essential factor in lung cancer metastasis (Cancer Res 2013) - has now been listed as a proven cancer gene in the Cancer Gene Census. It is hence the first non-coding RNA which reached this status!

Further reading on MALAT1 and ncRNAs in metastasis:
Onogene 2003, Genome Res 2011, RNA Biol 2012, Cancer Res 2013, J Mol Med 2013, Int J Cancer 2016

19.07.2018 - Accepted

Good news from our collaboration partner Kannanganattu Prasanth at the University of Illinois: our first joint manuscript on the role of long non-coding RNAs in cell cycle regulation has just been accepted at Nucleic Acids Research (new IF: 12). Congratulations and thank you for including us in this productive collaboration!

P.S.: Now, this is the fifth original article with an impact factor above 10 this year for our lab ... and we are just in July... and although our scientifically most impactful paper this year so far (from our perspective) did not even make it into this category, but is certainly worth reading ... 

14.05.2018 - Accepted

Today, Marcel's paper entitled "The lncRNA CASC9 and RNA binding protein HNRNPL form a complex and co-regulate genes linked to AKT signaling" has been accepted for publication in Hepatology.

Congratulations - and what a great way to get your data published before submitting your PhD thesis!
We will all celebrate next week another 13 impact points for our lab... and more to come as the very positive presubmission inquiries in the last weeks let us hope for.

10.04.2018 - Lab Inning

This time, our lab outing takes place in the lab: Pizza and a movie ... and a nice Belgian cake for dessert... now, we know where to find the fantastic beasts and are prepared for part II in the fall.

02.04.2018 - Accepted

Happy news for happy Easter:

Today, our manuscript entitled "The cancer-associated microprotein CASIMO1 controls cell proliferation and interacts with squalene epoxidase modulating lipid droplet formation" has been accepted for publication in Oncogene. Congratulations and a big thank you to everyone who participated in this study and especially to Maria for her great dedication and perseverance throughout this project and to Matthias for driving the revision home! It has been a really long journey starting about nine years ago with a process of multiple submissions and revisions spanning about two years.

In this study, we describe the first microprotein derived from a putative lncRNA in cancer. We call it CASIMO1, identified it in breast cancer and characterize its cellular and molecular functions as well as interaction partners in detail.
You may wonder why this has not been published earlier and in a higher impact journal - well, we have been wondering about the same over the last years. But hence now, it is even more important, that many of you interested in our research have a look at it and judge for yourself... and if you like it: cite it frequently whenever you are looking at small ORFs in putative lncRNAs.
After all, our initial discovery of MALAT1 had also "only" been published in Oncogene and has now been cited 911 times according to the Web of Science.

21.03.2018 - Accepted

And another one: our collaboration partners Sonia Forcales and Manuel Perucho from Barcelona just informed us that our joint manuscript entiled "A novel long non-coding RNA from NBL2 pericentromeric macrosatellite forms a perinucleolar aggregate structure in colon cancer" has just been accepted at Nucleic Acids Research
By the way: this is our tenth publication in NAR (IF 10.2) in the last five years...

28.02.2018 - Lab Outing & Farewell of a Master

It is cold outside - really, really cold. So, this is the ideal whether for a hot dinner inside. Hence, we have Raclette tonight - and celebrate Angela's Master defense and sadly say good-by to her.

26.02.2018 - Accepted - 10 points for CCI + CCCF

Good news from our collaboration partner Dr. Claudio Mussolino: our joint manuscript on the use of designer epigenome modifiers in clinically relevant human cells has just been accepted for publication in Nucleic Acids Research. Congratulations !

This is a prime example of the fruitful collaboration of our group as part of the Comprensive Cancer Center Freiburg (CCCF) together with several groups at the Center for Chronic Immunodeficiency (CCI) which are housed together in the new Center for Translational Cell Research in Freiburg (ZTZ).

20.01.2018 - 500 citations for MALAT1

Good news from the Web of Science:

Our publication on the important role of MALAT1 in lung cancer metastasis has now been cited more than 500 times since its publication in Cancer Research in 2013.

It is thus the fifth publication from our lab reaching this milestone.

24.12.2017 - Happy holidays

Happy Holidays, merry Christmas and all the best wishes for the new year 2018 !
We would like to thank all our colleagues and collaborators for their Support in the past year and look Forward to a fruitful next year.

13.12.2017 - Farewell & Christmas Lab Outing

December is here ... and we go for our Christmas lab outing: an evening of Bowling and a nice dinner at the new restaurant "Das Quartier" not far away from our lab. At the same time, we are sad to say good-bye to Yogita, who will move to Scandinavia soon. 

11.12.2017 - Funding

Good news from the German Research Foundation (DFG):
Our grant proposal on novel types of mutations in tumor suppressor genes outside of the coding region will be funded for the next three years.

 

08.12.2017 - Top 0.01%

In these days, when almost everything is rated as "outstanding" and "excellent" and within the "top 10%", it sometimes helps to look at real numbers again:

Almost five years ago, our manuscript on the important role of the lncRNA MALAT1 in lung cancer metastasis has been accepted for publication and was printed in Cancer Research in February 2013. Not even five years after its publication, we are proud to see that it has already been cited 485 times - and we would like to thank our colleagues in the scientific community for this unanimous appreciation of our work.

To put this number into perspective: Out of all 9.010.590 scientific papers published worldwide in the last five years, our paper ranks #857, so at the top 0,0095% ...

 

24.11.2017 - Lab outing to the space

For our November lab outing, we chose a very special place to go and see: our galaxy. The Planetarium Freiburg took all of us on an exciting cruise through the milky way, before we indulged into more earthy pleasures cruising from the Indian Curryhouse to the cocktails at Brasil.

 

08.11.2017 - Visibility & Impact

The scientific community values our contributions as expressed in citing of our work: in the first ten months of this year alone, all our publications together have been cited more than 1000 times. We are very happy about the visibility and the impact that our scientific articles apparently reach.

 

19.10.2017 - ZTZ Happy Hour

Today, it is our turn:
Everyone in the ZTZ is welcome to join for the Happy Hour organized by our lab starting at 17:00 - but not on the second floor, but outside under the blue sky on the new ZTZ deck. Enjoy food and drinks and Ksenia's favorite Pub Quiz...

 

04.10.2017 - Accepted

Three in a row ... original research articles these are:

Today, Ashish's manuscript on the inverse but independent regulation of pairs of sense mRNAs and their antisense lncRNAs during the DNA damage response got accepted for publication in Nucleic Acids Research! Congratulations - thereby, one of the studies going on for the longest time in our lab has found "a good home". Thanks to the many who made valuable contributions over the years...

For all those interested in statistics:

This is now the tenth publication from our lab this year and the fifth one with an impact factor above 10. So, 2017 is a productive year for us - and stay tuned: there is much more to come.

02. - 04.10.2017 - Retreat

The two Diederichs divisions from Heidelberg and Freiburg are going on their annual joint retreat!

So, do not wonder if the labs are empty these days - we are in Bad Herrenalb in the Black Forest and make big plans for the next exciting science.

02.10.2017 - Accepted

21.09.2017 - Accepted

12.09.2017 - Publons Peer Review Award

24.08.2017 - Accepted

26.06.2017 - Welcome

13.04.2017 - Accepted

10.04.2017 - Accepted

01.03.2017 - One year in Freiburg

01.02.2017 - Lab Outing

25.01.2017 - Accepted

01.01.2017 - A new year

24.12.2016 - Happy holidays

16.12.2016 - 1000 Citations

Our review article on microRNA Biogenesis in Nature Cell Biology has reached 1000 citations in Web of Science! Also, our review on long non-coding RNAs in cancer published in RNA Biology has already been cited 400 times. Thanks to everyone who acknowledged our work by citing it.

Also our original research has reached several milestones with 650 citations for the discovery of MALAT1 (Oncogene) and more than 300 citations for its functional characterization (Cancer Research) as well as the discovery of Argonaute protein functions in microRNA biogenesis and regulation (Cell).

14.12.2016 - Lab Outing ... to the Movies

Tonight, we will learn about fantastic beasts and where to find them.

05.12.2016 - Christmas Lab Outing

Today, we had a great time at the Christmas Market in Strasbourg.

22.11.2016 - Celebrations

Meet us for dinner and drinks tonight in the "Brasil" to celebrate a big birthday tomorrow... 

24.10.2016 - Welcome

Patrick Frey starts his rotation in our lab for four weeks as an SGBM rotation student working with Chul-Min. Welcome!

12.10.2016 - Accepted

Good news from Barcelona: our joint manuscript with Manel Esteller's group has been accepted for publication in PNAS. Congratulations!

23.09.2016 - Accepted

Today, our manuscript on the use of CRISPR-based technologies for non-coding RNAs (as well as any other gene ...) -  the challenges and potential pitfalls as well as the required controls to circumvent these  - has been accepted by Nucleic Acids Research!

Congratulations to Ashish and Ksenia as well as Matthias and Marcel - and many thanks to everyone else who contributed to this quick and successful Project.

21.09.2016 - Vacant position for technician

Job opening !!! Please have a look at our site "Open Positions"... 

10.08.16 - Lab Outing

After our lab meeting today, we will go for our August lab outing... if you want to discuss science and beyond, you can meet uns in the "Extrablatt" tonight...

28.07.16 - Lab Inning

The Lab Outing for July is more a Lab Inning: our latest addition to the lab comes to visit. Sadly, there are no lab coats in size 50 for toddlers...

27.07.16 - FEBS Anniversary Prize

And another recognition of our research work: today, the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) has awarded Sven with the 2016 Anniversary Prize!

09.06.16 - New future lab member arrived...

Congratulations!

04.06.16 - Accepted

Good news from our collaboration partners in Israel, Aldema Sas-Chen and Yosef Yarden: our manuscript on the role of LIMT, a novel lncRNA that inhibits metastasis in breast cancer, got accepted in EMBO Molecular Medicine. Congratulations!

25.05.16 - Birthday Lab Outing

This month's lab outing is something special: we celebrate (into) Ksenia's birthday! Karma in Freiburg - known to many, but not yet to us will host us for the evening.

18.05.16 - Housewarming, part II

After the official opening ceremony and the housewarming party for the entire building, we will now have the second part of the housewarming activities... with a much more selective group of attendees: the left half of the second floor... come and join in. 

11.05.16 - Sonam's review published

Sonam's review on the role of lncRNAs in migration, invasion and metastasis was published in the International Journal of Cancer.

10.05.16 - Dinner

After an intense day and the shock in the middle of the seminar, we earned our dinner and test out the Mexican restaurant next door... good food, but since there was a large group ahead of us, we had to wait for a long time before we could get back to the lab.

10.05.16 - Seminar at SFB 992

Today, Sven presents our projects at the SFB 992 "Medical Epigenetics" here in Freiburg.

Surprise right in the middle of the presentation: Sven's computer dies... an improvised Q&A session and a quick replacement from Ksenia save the seminar...

03.05.16 - "Ein klein Deutschkurs"

A surprise in the morning... a seminar in German for our international lab, but we took as "ein klein Deutschkurs"... and repeated the content of the instructions later in our lab Meeting in English.

02.05.16 - Cell culture

After the equipment of our lab is now almost complete and we spent the last months with a lot of planning and bioinformatical analyses for our running projects, we have started the cell culture today. Finally, our lab is fully operational.

01.05.16 - EMBO Mol Med Review

Right in time for our reunion meeting in Heidelberg, the review article written in the summer academy last year has now appeared in print in EMBO Molecular Medicine. Enjoy reading!

29.04.16 - Accepted

Good news from our partner lab at the DKFZ: Nucleic Acids Research has accepted our manuscript on splicing isoforms of the microRNA processing factor Drosha for publication. Congratulations to Steffen and Steffi, the shared first authors of this story!

22.04.16 - ZTZ Housewarming

The Center for Translational Cell Research (ZTZ) will celebrate housewarming today! All members of this new center join for short presentations from each group in the building, a rallye through the ZTZ and an evening with food, music, dancing and GATTACA (geneticists will know why the title is in capital letters).

20.04.16 - Research Meeting Thoracic Surgery

The Department of Thoracic Surgery meets today in the ZTZ lecture hall for its research meeting. Members of the new division and clinical fellows present and discuss their latest exciting results from basic science and clinical studies.

13.04.16 - Lab Outing: Bowling

A new month - a new lab outing. Tonight, we will all go Bowling since this is not that far from the lab. Now, everyone knows Sven's story about the Homer Simpson bowling socks ... and who can really master thie pins.

01.04.16 - Welcome

Dr. Chul-Min Yang from the NIH joins us today as a new postdoctoral fellow: Welcome!

10.03.16 - Lab Outing March

Our first - of hopefully many - lab outings is taking place. Since many of us are new to Freiburg, we enjoy a guided tour through the old town followed by a nice dinner in town.

05.03.16 - Chairs

The title says it all... little things can make us very happy these days.

03.03.16 - SGBM

Today, Sven has been appointed as principal investiogator in the Spemann Graduate School of Biology and Medicine (SGBM).

01.03.16 - Start reloaded

Now, the new building of the ZTZ at Breisacher Str. 115 in Freiburg is indeed move-in ready (for the largest part) and our group really starts: Sven, Sonam and Ksenia join from the DKFZ in Heidelberg and Andrea Becker joins the lab as a new member while Olga Mayer has already been part of the Department of Thoracic Surgery.

At the top of our wish list yet to come: chairs!

17.02.16 - Accepted

Now, it is for everyone to see what Sven did last summer:

He was leading a group of 22 talented students from all life sciences in a summer academy organized jointly by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and the Young Academy held at the Moastery of Roggenburg. Within only one week, they searched through more than 2100 scientific publications to distill the first of its kind review article on the topic of "The dark matter of the cancer genome: Aberrations in regulatory elements, untranslated regions, splice sites, non-coding RNA and synonymous mutations". Today, this manuscript has been accepted for publication in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine.

04.02.16 - Accepted

Today, Sonam's review on the role of lncRNAs in migration, invasion and metastasis was accepted for publication in the International Journal of Cancer. Congratulations!

15.01.16 - SFB 850 Cell Migration

Sonam presents her project on the role of lncRNAs in cell migration, metastasis and EMT at the SFB 850 "Control of Cell Motility in Morphogenesis, Cancer Invasion and Metastasis". Congratulations on a successful presentation!

01.01.16 - Start

Today, is officially the first day of the new Division of Cancer Research in the Department of Thoracic Surgery at the Medical Faculty and Medical Center of the University of Freiburg.

But... no space for us, so the "real" start of our division will be in March when the brandnew building will hopefully be move-in ready.

Division of Cancer Research

Department of Thoracic Surgery
Center for Translational Cell Research (ZTZ)
Breisacher Str. 115
D-79106 Freiburg

Prof. Dr. Sven Diederichs
Division Head

Phone: +49 761 270-77571
E-Mail: lung-cancer-research@uniklinik-freiburg.de