German Research Foundation (DFG) extends Research Training Group "Targets in Toxicology"
The cooperation of LMU, Helmholtz Munich, Bundeswehr University and TUM, receives funding for another period of four and a half years.
The German Research Foundation (DFG) establishes eleven new Research Training Groups to further strengthen scientific qualification in the context of doctoral studies. Ten others will be continued, including the GRK2338 "Toxicological Targets - Deciphering Therapeutic Targets in Pulmonary Toxicology", established since 2018. It offers Ph.D. candidates the opportunity to pursue a doctorate in a structured research and qualification program at a high professional level.
"We are very pleased about the extension of this DFG funding. In our research training group, doctoral students from the life sciences and medicine are investigating the mechanisms of severe toxic lung damage and identifying starting points for innovative therapies," explains Thomas Gudermann, Dean of the Faculty of Human Medicine at LMU, and spokesperson for the research training group.
"The qualification program is characterized by high quality. It combines specialized training in the field of pulmonary pathophysiology with the teaching of toxicology in its entire breadth. The DFG extension is therefore a great confirmation of our work," adds deputy spokesperson Claudia Staab-Weijnitz. The group leader at the Institute of Lung Health and Immunity (LHI/CPC, Helmholtz Munich) has made major contributions to the curricular conception of the GRK since the beginning in 2018 and communicated the corresponding contents in the renewal proposal and evaluation process. Other LHI/CPC scientists involved are the group leaders Anne Hilgendorff, Mareike Lehmann, Herbert Schiller and Ali Önder Yildirim. The extension means that they will continue to receive funding for personnel as well as material resources for MD and Ph.D. doctoral candidates over the next four and a half years.
The overall conceptual goal of the GRK "Targets in Toxicology" is to create a deeper mechanistic understanding of toxic lung injury with the ultimate aim to establish new therapeutic concepts of "precision toxicology" for acute and chronic toxic lung injury. Toxic lung damage occurs when toxic gaseous substances such as cigarette smoke, particulate matter, diesel particles or certain chemical weapons are absorbed through the respiratory tract.
In addition to the LMU and the LHI/CPC (Helmholtz Munich), the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology of the German Armed Forces and the Technical University of Munich are participating in the Research Training Group.
All information about the GRK "Toxicological Targets - Deciphering Therapeutic Targets in Pulmonary Toxicology" is available here (German)
To find out which other RTGs the DFG is funding or has extended, click here (German)