Cell Migration

The ProDoc Cell Migration is an initiative of the Theodor Kocher Institute (TKI) at the University of Bern (UNIBE), the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Bellinzona and the Chairs of Pathology and Pharmacology of the Faculty of Science at the University of Fribourg (UNIFR). Combining the research focus of the TKI on studying immune cell migration during immunosurveillance and inflammation by means of live cell imaging with the strong background on mouse and human immunology of the IRB, successful research collaborations between the laboratories of Britta Engelhardt and Jens V. Stein (TKI) and Federica Sallusto (IRB) have already been pursued. The recent recruitment of Curzio Rüegg and Carole Bourquin to UNIFR, together with the expertise of Mariagrazia Uguccioni (IRB) on expression of chemokines in tumor microenvironments regulating infiltration of immune cells and positioning of malignant cells, and of Urban Deutsch on the role of the Angiopoietin/Tie-2 in vascular biology and cancer, broadens our expertise to tumor cell biology and thus provides a profound basis for proposing the comprehensive ProDoc Cell Migration. Our complementary scientific expertises, the combination of in vivo mouse models and in vitro human models and the variety of technical platforms provide a unique framework for establishing an internationally visible training program for highly qualified PhD and MD/PhD students in the field of cell migration, the excellence of which could not be achieved at this level in the individual laboratories as such. Although the official language of the ProDoc will be English, the location of the participating institutions promotes the exposure of ProDoc students to the rich cultural diversity within Switzerland and will favor the acquisition of new languages (German, Italian and French) and thus complement the education of the students in view of future postdoctoral training and also support mobility. Within the ProDoc Cell Migration students will be grouped in two Research Modules, namely Research Module I: Immune cell migration during immunosurveillance and inflammation and Research Module II: Cell migration in tumorigenesis and metastasis, respectively. They will perform collaborative high quality research projects covering highly relevant aspects of cell migration. The six students, whose funding is requested in this application will perform specific parts of their PhD thesis within the different participating laboratories and will therefore provide the continuous and direct link within the ProDoc. Conceptually, the ProDoc Cell Migration is designed to convey to participating students in depth knowledge of the molecular events that control cell migration in both, mouse and human systems, and to confront them with a large armamentarium of state-of-the art technologies to study the questions at hand. The accompanying Training Module will be organized by Marlene Wolf, the coordinator of the interfaculty Graduate School for Cellular and Biological Sciences (GCB, www.gcb.unibe.ch) at UNIBE with 250 students enrolled currently. This module composed of lectures, practical classes, journal clubs, webportal-based training modules and meetings on the specific topics, is designed to guarantee the continuous interaction of the ProDoc students and to challenge them to become critical young researchers with professional communication skills and a strong desire for excellence as their future basis to promote their own ideas in research. In addition to the five students applied for here, eight students funded by other sources, including two national and international collaborative projects, will join the training module and benefit from all training activities and from the mobility and interactions offered within the ProDoc Cell Migration. Coordination of all research and training activities within the proposed ProDoc Cell Migration will be the obligation of the ProDoc steering committee B. Engelhardt (TKI), F. Sallusto (IRB), C. Rüegg (UNIFR) and M. Wolf (TKI), representing the institutions involved. Administration of the ProDoc Cell Migration will rely on the well established GCB at UNIBE, which will formally evaluate and approve applicants selected by the ProDoc steering committee. ProDoc students from TKI and IRB will be formally enrolled in this program, further strengthening the already established collaboration in postgraduate education between the two institutions. A strong teaching collaboration between UNIBE and UNIFR (BEFRI) is already in place in the context of the Master in Biomedical Sciences (BMS), a Graduate Program in Developmental Neurobiology and the recently planned Master Program in Bioinformatics, where the curriculum is shared between the universities. The establishment of the ProDoc Cell Migration would allow an extension of the BEFRI collaboration at the graduate level in the life sciences and should be instrumental in initiating a Graduate School in life sciences at UNIFR and enforcing the coordination of graduate studies between these universities.