DAAD RISE Program: Call 2014

DAAD RISE Program: Call 2014

The German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD) announced a new call for its program “Research Internships in Science and Engineering” (RISE) for summer internship in 2014. The program works in both ways. German and American Ph.D. students submit internship offers for undergraduates students for a duration of 8 to 12 weeks. German bachelor students can work as research interns at U.S. universities and U.S. undergraduates can work in labs of German universities. The DAAD provides stipends to help cover living expenses, the partner universities and research institutes provide housing assistance. The call is applicable for all fields of biology, chemistry, physics, earth sciences and engineering. Please visit for further

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New Grant supports joint Research Project between Vanderbilt and Leipzig Universities

Annette Beck-Sickinger and Torsten Schoeneberg from Leipzig University and Jens Meiler from Vanderbilt University receive a grant “Ensemble Docking Interrogates Structural Determinants of Ligand-Protein Interactions” that is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The grant will develop a novel docking algorithm that leverages Structure-Activity-Relations (SAR) and apply this algorithm to understand regulation of G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs). Project Summary

Symposium and New Grants bolster Vanderbilt-Leipzig Partnership

Symposium and New Grants bolster Vanderbilt-Leipzig Partnership

Two new grants and a summer symposium with workshops highlight ongoing collaboration efforts between Vanderbilt University and Leipzig University: 1) Vanderbilt University received a grant from the Max Kade Foundation in support of an undergraduate and graduate student exchange program in collaboration with Leipzig University. The collaboration is spearheaded by Drs. Jens Meiler (Vanderbilt University) and Annette Beck-Sickinger (Leipzig University). 2) The Meiler and Weaver laboratories at Vanderbilt University received a grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK, NIH) for the development of “Small Molecule Probes to Investigate Structure and Function of Y Receptors.” This project is a collaboration with Annette Beck-Sickinger at Leipzig University,

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The Leipzig Connection

The Leipzig Connection

by David Salisbury | posted at news.vanderbilt.edu: In 2007, while Jens Meiler was visiting his parents in Germany, the associate professor of chemistry was invited to give a lecture at his alma mater, the University of Leipzig. “When I gave that talk on my research in structural and chemical biology, I found a tremendous amount of interest in what we are doing at Vanderbilt and learned that there is a great deal of complementary research going on in Leipzig,” Meiler said. In fact, Meiler stirred up so much interest that two years later Annette Beck-Sickinger, professor of biochemistry and bioorganic chemistry at Leipzig, spent her sabbatical at Vanderbilt. During her visit

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DAAD RISE Program: Call 2013

DAAD RISE Program: Call 2013

The German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD) announced a new call for its program “Research Internships in Science and Engineering” (RISE) for summer internship in 2013. The program works in both ways. German and American Ph.D. students submit internship offers for undergraduates students for a duration of 8 to 12 weeks. German bachelor students can work as research interns at U.S. universities and U.S. undergraduates can work in labs of German universities. The DAAD provides stipends to help cover living expenses, the partner universities and research institutes provide housing assistance. The call is applicable for all fields of biology, chemistry, physics, earth sciences and engineering. Please visit for further information:

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Vanderbilt PhD students in Leipzig

Vanderbilt PhD students in Leipzig

Stephanie and Liz are graduate students in the Meiler Laboratory at Vanderbilt University.  They both work on the computational investigation of GPCRs and their interactions with various ligands. They recently took the opportunity to do a month-long research internship at Leipzig University in conjunction with their collaborators, who perform the wet-lab experiments associated with the proteins they model. Herein, they reflect on their experiences. Liz Dong: For 4 weeks, I worked with the lab of Dr. Torsten Schöneberg on a project involving P2Y12, a receptor involved in platelet aggregation. My part of the project was to build a model of P2Y12 using Rosetta and dock known ligands into the model to

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DAAD RISE Program: Call 2012

DAAD RISE Program: Call 2012

The German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD) announced a new call for its program “Research Internships in Science and Engineering” (RISE) for summer internship in 2012. The program works in both ways. German and American Ph.D. students submit internship offers for undergraduates students for a duration of 8 to 12 weeks.  German bachelor students can work as research interns at U.S. universities and U.S. undergraduates can work in labs of German universities. The DAAD provides stipends to help cover living expenses, the partner universities and research institutes provide housing assistance. The call is applicable for all fields of biology, chemistry, physics, earth sciences and engineering. Please visit for further

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Liz Dong Receives DAAD Short Term Research Grant

Liz Dong of the Jens Meiler lab at Vanderbilt recently received a short term research grant to study at the Univeristy of Leipzig in Leipzig, Germany. She will spend one month this fall developing a computational method that will allow for the binding pose of a drug within a receptor to be determined. Her method will be guided by experimental data collected on drugs that bind G-protein coupled receptors, working with the lab of Torsten Schöneberg. Congrats, Liz!

Collaborative Paper published in “Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry”

Researchers of Leipzig and Vanderbilt Universities published a paper in the journal “Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry” showing the results of their collaborative project on carbaborane research. The paper, published in March 2011, describes new synthesis strategies of indomethacin derivatives with inorganic carbaborane clusters. Indomethacin is a very potent cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 and COX-2 inhibitor with clinical significance as anti-inflammatory drug , The carbaborane-modified drug candidates showed also COX inhibition activity, depending on the carbaborane isomer and the connection pattern. The results gave general insights into the applicability of carbaboranes as drug entities. Synthesis and evaluation of carbaborane derivatives of indomethacin as cyclooxygenase inhibitors Matthias Scholz(1), Anna L. Blobaum(2), Lawrence J. Marnett(2) and

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Collaborative Paper published in Journal of Biological Chemistry

First results of the successful collaboration between Leipzig University (Germany) and Vanderbilt University, Nashville (Tennessee, USA) have been published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry by end of 2010. Researchers from the labs of Annette G. Beck-Sickinger (Leipzig University) and Vsevolod V. Gurevich (Vanderbilt University) investigated the mechanism and regulation of neuropeptide Y2 receptor internalization. For the first time, the corporate publication “Ligand-induced internalization and recycling of the human neuropeptide Y2 receptor is regulated by its carboxyl-terminal tail” reports on specific sequences located in the receptor’s C-terminus which determine arrestin-dependent/independent internalization and recycling events, thus contributes to a better understanding of the regulation of G protein-coupled receptor trafficking pathways. Cornelia Walther,

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Details from 4 Vanderbilt Students about their DAAD-RISE Internships at Leipzig

[by Ross Barajas, Aaron Coonley, Deanna Joe, and Dan Viox] Germany is a country with a rich history and a thriving culture, a leader in scientific discoveries, and a desired destination for many, including four undergraduate students from Vanderbilt University. Through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), we each applied for Research Internship in Science and Engineering (RISE) internships in the winter of 2009. We were awarded scholarships to the University of Leipzig, a university with which Vanderbilt University already has an established collaboration. Over our stay of three months, we were able to develop extensive research skills, learning and working under our mentors—Ph.D. candidates at the university.  Ross Barajas worked

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Two Leipzig students at Vanderbilt

Sabina Kanton and Henrike Indrischek (biochemistry undergraduates from Leipzig University) took the opportunity to visit Vanderbilt University for a 5 week research stay in September and October 2010 with a special tender of the DAAD RISE program. Here is their report about this experience. Why Vanderbilt University? Both of us wanted to gain practical experience and get an insight into the work of a research group abroad. We were just curious to get to know the atmosphere of such a prominent American university and of course were keen on improving our scientific English. Research projects I (Henrike Indrischek) worked in the group of Hassane Mchaourab at the Institute of Molecular Biology

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Report on summer internships at Vanderbilt 2010

Report on summer internships at Vanderbilt 2010

In 2010 several students from Leipzig University had the opportunity for a research stay at Vanderbilt University. Stefanie Nagel and Anette Schreiber, students of the Master’s degree program in biochemistry at Leipzig University, were two of these. Thanks to the cooperation of Leipzig University and Vanderbilt University in Nashville (Tenneessee, USA), they participated in a 10-week student exchange in summer 2010 and report here shortly their experience. Stefanie Nagel: I performed my internship at Vanderbilt University in the workgroup of Prof. Vsevolod (Seva) Gurevich, Department of Pharmacology, a recognized expert on the field of arrestin proteins. The aim of my project was to characterize the interaction between the human neuropeptide Y

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