Young DZHK Retreat Programme
as of 18/8/2026
Wednesday
9 September 2026
Registration & Light Bites
11:00–12:00
Welcome
12:15–12:30
- Sonia Singh, Simone-Franziska Glaser, Michael Molitor
1st Oral Session: Cardiomyopathies & HFpEF
12:30–13:20
Chairs: Anna Feuerstein, Sonia Singh
- Early Genotype-Specific Atrial Remodeling in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
Martin Beyer · North - Myoferlin-Deficient Cardiomyocytes Exhibit Impaired Calcium Handling and Reduced Beta-Adrenergic Responsiveness under Stress
Magnus Mathias · Lower Saxony - Heterogeneity in Treatment Benefit of Oral Semaglutide in People with Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction
Fabian Müller · Munich - ³¹P-MRS as a Platform for Detecting Real-Time Cardiac Energetic Alterations in Cardiomyopathy and Heart Failure
Yingke Hou · Berlin - 10 min Panel Discussion
Workshop
13:30–16:30
- Robert Kötter · TwentyOneSkills
Topic: tba
1st Poster Session & Coffee (Posters A–C)
16:30–18:00
Poster Session A
Chairs: Simone-Franziska Glaser, Laura Parma
- GPR18 as an adaptive immune modulator in atherosclerosis
Aishvaryaa Prabhu · Munich - Pooled CRISPR screens identify a lncRNA involved in the innate inflammatory immune response
Niklas Petzold · Munich - Mineralocorticoid receptor signaling promotes macrophage expansion and right ventricular dysfunction
Leonardo von der Ohe · Berlin - Age-associated neutrophil dynamics in patients with myocardial infarction
Hannah Kleitke · Berlin - Plasma infrared fingerprinting and clonal haematopoiesis for residual risk stratification in coronary artery disease
Tarek Eissa · Munich - Procoagulant platelets destabilize atherosclerotic plaques
Sezer Akgöl · Munich - LTBP2 serves as a promising novel antifibrotic therapy target
Julia Fischer · Heidelberg/Mannheim - Targeting the SIRPα Immune Checkpoint to Enhance Efferocytosis and Attenuate Atherosclerosis
Benjamin Bonnard · Heidelberg/Mannheim - Progressive thrombocytopenia dose-dependently impairs antibacterial host defense and amplifies organ injury in sepsis
Raphael Escaig · Munich - Splenic Inhibitory Signaling Regulates Systemic Platelet Activation
Lisa Laun · Munich - Tricuspid regurgitation accelerates left ventricular failure
Florian Sicklinger · Heidelberg/Mannheim - Endothelial Activation in Venous Thrombosis: Developing Targeted Nanoparticles for therapeutic siRNA Delivery
Julia Stermann · Munich - Type I Interferon-Mediated Regulation of Splenic Megakaryopoiesis During Systemic Inflammation
Jinlong Wan · Munich
Poster Session B
Chairs: Anna Feuerstein, Laura Priesmeier
- Multicellular computational analysis of bulk and single-nucleus RNA-seq identifies transcriptional programs and paracrine signals governing reverse cardiac remodeling
Ines Rivero Garcia · Heidelberg/Mannheim - ECG-Based Prediction of Systolic Heart Failure Using AI Trained on Weak Labels from Routine Clinical Data
Philip Hempel · Lower Saxony - Chamber-Specific Chromatin Architecture Guides Functional Interpretation of Disease-Associated Cis-Regulatory Elements in Human Cardiomyocytes
Shaza Haydar · Heidelberg/Mannheim - Contractile and mitochondrial impairment in engineered heart tissues with myofibrillar myopathy genetic variants
Leonie Ewald · North - Base Editing for Anti-Arrhythmic Therapy through Modulation of Lysosomal Calcium Signalling in Cardiomyocytes
Sayari Bhunia · Heidelberg/Mannheim - Association of Early Cardiac Remodeling and Undiagnosed Valvular Heart Disease in a Population-Based Cohort
Laura Hannen · North - In vivo cardiac prime editing for the treatment of genetic cardiomyopathy
Vijayanand Rajendran · Munich - Can multiscale cardiac MRI-based virtual biopsy reveal the dynamics of cardiac remodeling in cardiomyopathy and heart failure?
Xiaomin Wang · Berlin - Exploring the role of PRDM16 in arterial development and disease
Pavithra Janarthanan · North - Diabetes Exacerbates Metabolic Dysfunction in Advanced Ischaemic Cardiomyopathy
Lucy Finnigan · Berlin - GENDIMA - Analysis of potential gender-related differences in the pre-management and documentation of patients included in the DZHK clinical data set
Marina Kurtz · Rhine-Main - Cpeb4 links alternative polyadenylation to translational dysregulation in heart failure
Vivien Kmietczyk · Heidelberg/Mannheim
Poster Session C
Chairs: Michael Molitor, Sonia Singh
- Loss of ANGPTL4 in adipose tissue protects against HFpEF
Giuseppe Trimarchi · Berlin - STAT1 Signaling as a Central Regulator of Immune–Metabolic Crosstalk and Cardiac Remodeling in Chronic Kidney Disease
Laura D’Ambrosio · Munich - Effect of cGMP-PKG signalling pathway on cardiac contractility and metabolism
Moyra Schweizer · North - Role of the enzymatic activity of all class IIa histone deacetylases in HFpEF
Natalie Hauff · Heidelberg/Mannheim - Persistent Molecular Legacy Limits Recovery in Cardiometabolic HFpEF
Rongling Wang · Berlin - Endothelial-derived Neuregulin 1 modulates pericytes function and induces diastolic dysfunction in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction
Leah Vanicek · Rhine-Main - Gut microbiota drive cardiovascular pathology in pediatric chronic kidney disease
Wibke Anders · Berlin - HDAC4-NT gene therapy prevents HFpEF & HFrEF
Sricharan Lakkaraju · Heidelberg/Mannheim - Activating a cardiac defense pathway: a screening platform for heart failure therapy development
Pauline Döttling · Heidelberg/Mannheim - A unified single-cell atlas of mouse tissue damage across vascular disease models
Shamim Ashrafiyan · Rhine-Main - IL-6 impairs cardiomyocyte mitochondrial network integrity through reciprocal STAT3/HDAC4 shuttling
Eric Schoger · Heidelberg/Mannheim
2nd Oral Session: Regenerating Hearts + Ageing Heart and Vessels
18:00–18:50
Chairs: Niklas Beyhoff, Laura Priesmeier
- Establishment of a 3D culture system to investigate mechanisms and discover novel molecules that promote cardiomyocyte invasion of fibrotic scar tissue
Alina Bektimirova · Heidelberg/Mannheim - Post-infarct myocardial remodeling in a human-relevant NHP model: from acute to chronic
Constantin von Bibra · Lower Saxony - Limited neonatal heart regeneration after cryoinjury is associated with impaired revascularization and reinnervation
Antonella Carozzi · Rhine-Main - Prediction of incident atrial fibrillation from a 10-second single-lead ECG using a neural network
Benjamin Holderied · North - 10 min Panel Discussion
Dinner
19:00–20:30
Thursday
10 September 2026
YDZHK Running Session with Niklas and Anna
06:45–07:30
Keynote Lecture
08:30–09:30
Chair: Sonia Singh
From molecules to medicine: building a career through big scientific questions
Gabriele G. Schiattarella · Deutsches Herzzentrum der Charité (DHZC) – Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in the Helmholtz Association, Berlin
3rd Oral Session: Immunocardiology + Heart and Brain
09:30–10:20
Chairs: Leo Nicolai, Michael Molitor
- Biomarker detection of myocarditis and myocardial infarction using cell-free RNA from plasma
Louisa Weber · Munich - Distinct, sex-specific neutrophil activation patterns characterize plaque erosion vs. plaque rupture in ACS
Meret Fischer · Berlin - Neurovascular mechanisms driving dynamic spatiotemporal remodelling of cardiac innervation after myocardial infarction
Clara Sophia Bühler · Rhine-Main - AutoHealth: Real-world in-vehicle monitoring reveals hemodynamic and autonomic cardiovascular signatures across the cardiometabolic-heart failure spectrum
Dominik Naumann · Berlin - 10 min Panel Discussion
2nd Poster Session & Coffee (Posters D–F)
10:20–11:50
Poster Session D
Chairs: Simone-Franziska Glaser, Michael Molitor
- Minor splicing regulates cell-cycle activity and stress-responsive gene expression in iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes
Tianshu Xu · Heidelberg/Mannheim - In-vivo-like sprouting tip cell biology in human microphysiological systems
Jennifer Schwarzkopf · Berlin - Natural aging drives a subclinical cardiovascular phenotype in a non-human primate
Mostafa Samak · Lower Saxony - Crip1 deficiency reduces monocyte motility and attenuates myeloid activation, vascular inflammation and early remodelling in AngII-induced hypertension
Olga Schweigert · North - Klotho regulates myocardial function in living human slices and cardiorenal phenotype in klotho-deficient swine model
Irem Ornek · Munich - CPT1A Marks a Proliferative Cardiomyocyte Subpopulation and Drives Cardiac Regeneration through Metabolic-Epigenetic Reprogramming
Jiawen Chen · Rhine-Main - Population Trends in the Use of P2Y12 Inhibitors after Acute Myocardial Infarction
Fabian Müller · Munich - More than Medium: Systematic Evaluation of Metabolic Maturation Factors towards Tubular Engineered Heart Tissue
Corinna Bürger · North - Federated Learning for Estimating Risk of Permanent Pacemaker Dependency Following Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implementation
Yannik Frisch · Heidelberg/Mannheim - Interplay of epigenetics and metabolism in regulation of heart regeneration
Andreea Alexandra Bostean Olariu · Rhine-Main - Class IIa histone deacetylases (HDACs) in atherosclerosis – More than HDAC9?
Hans Siegrist · Heidelberg/Mannheim - The impact of shear stress on the susceptibility of endothelial cells to undergo endothelial-to-mesenchymal-transition (EndMT)
Alicia Beele · Munich - The role of CCR2 in cardiac regeneration after damage in neonatal mice
Antonella Carozzi · Rhine-Main
Poster Session E
Chairs: Anna Feuerstein, Elias Rawish
- A Novel Endocardial-Axon Axis Links Aging to Left Atrial Hyperinnervation and Atrial Fibrillation Risk
Annika Braun · Rhine-Main - Cardiac phenotype in a murine model of recurrent ischemic stroke
Polina Bugaeva · Berlin - Engineering an Innervated Human Myocardium to Investigate ANS Contributions to Timothy Syndrome Arrhythmias
Maham Novin · Lower Saxony - Proteomic profiling of neuro-immune interactions in the human intracardiac nervous system in cardiac disease
Sandro Meunier · Munich - Impact of clonal hematopoiesis on secondary cardiac injury after ischemic stroke
Markus Winkler · Berlin - Sympathoadrenergic driven arterial hypertension in CRTC1-deficient mice
Karoline Morhenn · North - GPR26 as a Regulator of Hyperglycemia-Induced Endothelial Dysfunction
Zahra Abedi Kichi · Munich - Biomarker response to balloon-in-basket pulsed field ablation: does posterior wall isolation matter?
Johanna Meyer-Waeterling · North - Distinct endothelial responses to plasma from obstructive and non-obstructive myocardial infarction animal models highlights early differences between MINOCA and MI-CAD
Christien Beez · Berlin - Time-of-Day Variation in Platelet Function Shapes Thrombotic Potential
Afra Anjum · Munich - Phenotyping the Circulating Immune Response in Patients with Infective Endocarditis
Robin Dewender · Munich - Thromboinflammation as a New Therapeutic Target for Pancreatitis-Associated Thrombosis
Lennart Kreutz · Munich - Interaction of Platelets and Neutrophils in Infectious Disease
Maité Mulkers · Munich
Poster Session F
Chairs: Sebastian Graeger, Leo Nicolai
- Improved Surface Properties and Enhanced Cell Adhesion on Poly-ε-Caprolactone for Heart Valve Tissue Engineering Applications via H2-N2 Plasma Treatment
Monireh Saeid Nia · North - Angiocrine control of architectural cardiomyocytes governs mechanical integrity during ventricular compaction
Sven-Tore Janßen · North - A Dedicated Quality Control Framework for Imaging-Based Spatial Transcriptomics
Christian Kolland · Rhine-Main - Myocardial infarction-induced leukocyte accumulation in the pulmonary vasculature drives pulmonary hypertension
Justus Kamp · Berlin - First in vivo evidence derived from human patients in PET-CT and CT shows splenic uptake of activated platelets
Felix Zhang · Munich - CalciPy: An Automated, High-Throughput Python Tool for Comprehensive Analysis of Calcium Transients and Sparks in Cardiomyocytes to investigate Calcium Dysregulation in Human iPSC-Derived Cardiomyocytes
Dustin Schierholz · Lower Saxony - A pipeline for histone-wide association analysis applied to heart failure data
Maxim Evsioukov · Rhine-Main - Cell type-specific epigenetic regulatory circuitry of coronary artery disease loci
Dennis Hecker · Rhine-Main - Deciphering Carotid Plaque Instability: From Spatial Proteomics of Lesion Subregions to Multi-Omic Discovery of VSMC Surface Markers
Thomas Scherbauer · Munich - Integrated Serum Exosome miRNA and Proteome Profiling Provides Therapeutic Candidates for Validation in Marfan Syndrome Patient-Derived Organoids
Marlene Spitzel · Heidelberg/Mannheim - Loss of LETM1 triggers mitochondrial stress signaling and developmental transcriptional collapse in the fetal heart
Anushka Deshpande · Heidelberg/Mannheim
DZHK Focus Areas
11:50–12:40
Impulse talk: Julian U. G. Wagner
Break-out sessions:
- Focus area 1: Precision medicine in cardiomyopathies
Daniela Panáková, Anna Feuerstein - Focus area 2: Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction
Sandy Engelhardt, Simone-Franziska Glaser - Focus area 3: Immunocardiology
Tanja Zeller, Leo Nicolai - Focus area 4: Heart regeneration
Arica Beisaw, Sonia Singh - Focus area 5: Cardiovascular aging
Christiane Ott, N.N. - Focus area 6: Hear-Brain interaction
Julian Wagner, Laura Priesmeier
Wrap-up and Announcement of Highlight Talks
12:40–12:50
Evaluation
12:50–13:00
Start DZHK Retreat
14:00