RNAmed Annual Retreat 2025
Intensive scientific exchange in Venice
In the Venetian lagoon lies the small island of San Servolo, home to the campus of the Venice International University (VIU), a partner university of LMU Munich. San Servolo's history dates back over 1,000 years. It began as a monastery, later becoming a hospital, followed by a psychiatric clinic. Today, it has been converted into an event venue with seminar rooms, where RNAmed held its annual retreat from July 2 to 5, 2025.
Michelle Hastings (University of Michigan Medical School) and Frank Slack (Harvard Medical School) also attended the meeting. They are both members of the RNAmed Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). This provided a great opportunity to give them a comprehensive insight into the graduate program and to hear them speak at RNAmed for the first time. On the evening of arrival, Michelle Hastings gave an impressive lecture on "Antisense Oligonucleotides as Medicines for Neurological Diseases". There were plenty of networking and discussion opportunities during the dinner that followed.
The first session, the following morning, focused on topics related to 'General RNA Research and Antisense Oligonucleotides (ASOs)'. Moderated by Anne Dueck (TUM), a series of oral presentations was given by RNAmed doctoral students, who shared details of their projects. After a short break, the second session covered the topic of 'RNA Delivery', with more students presenting their own work. During the lunch break, participants were provided with lunch bags and had the opportunity to find quiet places on the island to discuss the presentations they had heard so far in small groups. The first highlight of the day followed with the guest talk from industry, presented by Gaia Martinelli from Novartis AG and titled 'From siRNA to Drug Product: An Industrial Perspective on Oligonucleotide Formulation'. During this lecture, the doctoral students gained valuable insights into the professional aspects of the pharmaceutical industry. As many of them are still undecided about pursuing a career in science, industry or other fields such as politics, this information helped them to get a better idea of their future options. After further discussion rounds and a retreat dinner at the island's restaurant, a second highlight of the day was the lecture by Frank Slack. His captivating talk, 'Towards microRNA-based Medicine in Cancer', brought the evening to a successful close.
The third session took place the next morning, with doctoral students presenting on the topic of 'RNA Technology & Translational Research'. Karl Petri (UKW) chaired the session. Afterwards, Nina Ripin (University of Regensburg) introduced herself and her work in a presentation about the role of stress granules and G3BP1 in coupling cytosolic and nuclear stress responses. This was the first time that Nina had met the entire RNAmed group, and it provided an excellent opportunity for everyone to get to know each other personally. Nina has been an associate junior research group leader at RNAmed since April 2025. She investigates the properties, function, and disease relevance of stress-induced ribonucleoprotein (RNP) granules using interdisciplinary approaches.
Another guest speaker, Li Yang from Fudan University in Shanghai, gave a very interesting presentation on 'AI Models for Macromolecule Subcellular Localization Prediction'. In the subsequent Career Session, doctoral students had the opportunity to ask questions about career paths during a panel discussion with Michelle Hastings, Ling-Ling Chen, Frank Slack, and the two RNAmed PIs, Cynthia Sharma (JMU) and Stefan Engelhardt (TUM). Of particular interest were the practical insights into what group leaders look for in postdoctoral applications. The official part of the retreat concluded with a fantastic presentation by Ling-Ling Chen (Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology) on 'Circular RNAs: From Biogenesis to Applications'.
After a successful and diverse retreat, the group took a boat from San Servolo back to Venice. In a quiet backyard of a restaurant, away from the crowds of tourists, a long table had been set up for the whole group, complete with traditional Italian pizza and Aperol Spritzes.
Christian Fröschel – RNAmed Program Coordinator
