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23 Jul 2019 by Ludwig Boltzmann

Symposium of the Austrian Society of Pneumology (ÖGP): 5 awardees of our institute!

The Annual Meeting of the Austrian Society for Pneumology that took place on October 6th -8th, 2016 in Vienna, was a very successful event for our LBI institute. Indeed, five of our colleagues were rewarded during a social evening in the Hofburg in Vienna, Austria:

FORIS Vasile (Div. Pulmonology, UKIM and LBI for Lung Vascular Research): Michael Neumann Gedächtnispreis 2016

JANDL Katharina (LBI for Lung Vascular Research): 2. Award and ÖGP Short Term Fellowship

NAGARAJ Chandran (Institute for Physiology, MUG and LBI for Lung Vascular Research): Michael Neumann Gedächtnispreis 2016

NAGY Bence (Institute for Physiology, MUG and LBI for Lung Vascular Research): 1. Award and ATS Travel Grant

DOUSCHAN Phillip (Div. Pulmonology, UKIM and LBI for Lung Vascular Research): ATS Travel Grant

Copyright: Austrian Society of Pneumology

Vasile FORIS received the Michael Neumann Gedächtnispreis for his European Respiratory Journal (ERJ) Paper „CD133+ cells in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH)“. He examined circulating mononuclear cells in patients with PAH and found that those humans have a reduced number of lymphocytes in their blood. Lymphocytes are the so-called immune-defence cells of the body. In addition, the amount of other cell types, such as CD133+ cells, is altered. The interesting point is a future application option of this knowledge: the different circulating cell populations could be used as biomarkers for PAH.

Katharina JANDL was happy to receive two awards for her work, the 2nd Award of the Austrian Society of Pneumology for her work about „Disturbances in composition, structure and function of the vascular basement membrane in pulmonary hypertension“. She discovered that in different forms of pulmonary hypertension, all characterised through vascular remodelling and deposition of extracellular matrix proteins, the basal membranes are structurally and functionally different. In addition, she has received a short term reserach fellowship of the Austrian Society of Pneumology. She has used her short term fellowship to learn the method “pulldown assay” in the laboratory of Dr. Matthias Brock at the Zurich University.

Chandran NAGARAJ got his Michael Neumann Gedächtnispreis 2016 for his ERJ paper titled “Docosahexaenoic acid causes rapid pulmonary arterial relaxation via KCa channel-mediated hyperpolarisation in pulmonary hypertension”. “In this paper we show for the very first time, using laser micro dissection, that remodelled pulmonary arteries of patients with idiopathic PAH (this is a PAH with unknown pathogenesis or apparently spontaneous origin) have high levels of calcium activated potassium channels” explains Chandran.

Bence NAGY received the 1st Award of the Austrian Society of Pneumology as well as an ATS Travel Grant for his publication “Kynurenine is a predictive metabolite for pulmonary hypertension.” Kynurenine is a metabolite of the amino acid tryptophan and enhanced in blood samples of patients suffering from the already mentioned idiopathic PAH which seems to be an indicator for this disease.

The second ATS Travel Grant went to Philipp DOUSCHAN and his poster entitled: “Borderline pulmonary pressure is associated with worse survival in patients at risk for pulmonary hypertension – a retrospective single center analysis.”