Martha Hanschkow Receives Helmholtz Best EMBO J Flash-Talk Award at 10th Helmholtz Diabetes Conference

At the 10th Helmholtz Diabetes Conference, Martha Hanschkow received the "Helmholtz Best EMBO J Flash-Talk Award". This year's Helmholtz Diabetes Conference, organized and hosted by Prof. Stephan Herzig, focused in particular on young scientists. They were offered the opportunity to exchange ideas with established, international scientists about current research, to discuss their own research approaches and to get helpful tips for their own career planning.

Martha Hanschkow is a biochemist and a successful young scientist. She is a PhD candidate at the Medical Faculty of the University of Leipzig in the research group "Childhood Obesity" of Prof. Antje Körner, who was appointed to HI-MAG in July. In her PhD thesis, Martha is working on the characterization of a genetic alteration that leads to the production of the Agouti signaling protein (short: ASIP) in cells where it does not originally occur and represents a new monogenic cause of severe childhood obesity. In doing so, she is investigating the role this unusual expression of ASIP plays in the central processes regulating the sensation of hunger.

The Helmholtz Best EMBO J Flash-Talk Award, sponsored by The EMBO Journal, was awarded to Martha for her flash talk, "Ectopic ASIP Expression as a Cause of Childhood Obesity through Possible Interaction with the MC4R Pathway."