CellCommSummit 2025

Jointly organized by:

As in previous years, the 28th STS Meeting will be organized as a Joint Meeting of the Signal Transduction Society with signaling study groups of the German Societies for Immunology (DGfI) and Cell Biology (DGZ), the Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (GBM), the German Society for Pharmacology (DGP), and the Collaborative Research Center "Structural Dynamics of GPCR Activation and Signaling" (SFB1423). If other organizations are interested in joining future STS Meetings, please contact the STS President Prof. Dr. Katharina Hieke-Kubatzky.

Planned Workshops:

A) From Basics to Translation
B) Hot Topics in Signal Transduction
C) Immune Cell Signaling
D) Infection and Inflammation
E) G-Proteins, GPCRs, and Ion Channels
F) Tumor Cell Biology
G) Differentiation, Stress, and Death
H) Growth factors and Neural Signaling

As in previous years, sponsoring companies will have the opportunity to present their innovative products for signal transduction research as a 15 min plenary lecture in a Workshop session. These presentations will conclude the Workshop sessions to allow for further discussions with the companies’ representatives at their booths during the following breaks.

Each Workshop/Session will start with introductory keynote presentations of 30 minutes (including discussion) given by invited speakers who have contributed significantly to the development of specific areas of signal transduction research. Keynote speakers are nominated by STS members and contributing consortia.

All presentations will be given as plenary lectures in the main conference hall. There will be no parallel workshop sessions. Oral presentations will be selected from the submitted abstracts (abstract submission deadline: September 30, 2025 - registrants with a voucher code can submit their abstract until October 5).

A limited number of abstracts will be selected for oral presentation of 10 minutes plus 5 minutes of discussion. The oral presentations are thematically related to the Workshop topics. They will be selected by the organizing committee on the basis of scientific quality and consistency with the scientific program.

Monday, Nov 3

10:30

On-Site Registration / Welcome Coffee

12:30

Welcome Note

STS President

Katharina Hieke-Kubatzky

12:45

Workshop A: From Basics to Translation

Research and development of stimulators and activators of soluble guanylyl cyclase (sGC): From basic science to therapeutic applications.

Peter Sandner

PI 3-kinase: from inhibitors to activators

Bart Vanhaesebroeck

Inflammasome responses and hyperactivation in primary human DC subpopulations

D

Diana Dudziak

A moonlighting function of the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein in suppressing DNA-induced innate immunity

G

Theresia Gutmann

The primary cilium controls programmed cell death via its proteasome-regulating function

G

Christoph Gerhardt

14:45

Coffee Break

15:15

STS General Assembly

16:30

My Poster in a Nutshell Talks I

17:00

Poster Viewing I

18:30

Dinner

19:30

Workshop B: Hot Topics in Signal Transduction

Innate immune signaling in viral infections through cellular nucleic acids

Stephanie Jung

Rapid functional verification of proteome-wide in-silico interaction screens

Jens Bosse

Reconstitution of active signalling complexes in live-cell nanopatterning

H

Steffen Harms

Customer Needs and OPEN Microscopy - Optical Toolboxes and Distributed Lab Automation

T

Dirk Truckenbrodt

21:00

Get-together in Hotel Gallery

Tuesday, Nov 4

08:30

Workshop C: Immune Cell Signaling

Metabolic basics of macrophage activation and inflammation

Jan Van den Bossche

Mitochondrial metabolism regulates the immunogenic responsiveness of dendritic cells

David Sancho

Deciphering the Metabolic Control of Treg Function

H

Janika Härm

Molecular characterization of sepsis protein activities for the reconstruction of signaling networks (SPARKS)

D

Birte Dyck

Critical Parameters for the Differentiation of Immune Cell Lines into proinflammatory Macrophages

W

Celine Weber

10:30

Coffee Break

11:00

Workshop D: Infection and Inflammation

Mitochondria in innate immune signaling

Konstanze Winklhofer

Signaling B cell activation: From phase-separated signal switches to transcriptional regulation of humoral immunity

Jürgen Wienands (Göttingen)

CTBP2 Integrates Transcription Factor and Co-repressor Networks to Restrict Macrophage Inflammation

G

Franziska Greulich

Cleavage of the Cytotoxin-associated gene A regulates STAT3 signaling in Helicobacter pylori infected macrophages

D

Sebastian Diechler

12:45

Lunch Snack

13:45

Workshop E: G Proteins, GPCRs, and Ion Channels

Transient receptor potential (TRP) channels in lung health and disease

Alexander Dietrich

Orphan GPCR dimerization in macrophages: physiological relevance and pharmacological modulation

Nina Wettschureck

Hydroxycarboxylic Acid Receptor 2 (HCA2) as a sensor for microbial-derived metabolites

B

Franziska Bischof

Succinate receptor 1 signaling mutually depends on subcellular localization and cellular metabolism

L

Aenne-Dorothea Liebing

Formyl peptide receptor signaling impacts interspecies differences in Alzheimer's disease

B

Lukas Busch

15:45

Coffee Break

16:15

My Poster in a Nutshell Talks II

16:45

Poster Viewing II

18:00

STS Medal Award Ceremony

Signalosomes and other supramolecular assemblies in health and disease

Hao Wu

19:30

Dinner

Wednesday, Nov 5

09:00

Workshop F: Tumor Cell Biology

Metabolic signaling of amino acids and their metabolites in cancer

Christiane A. Opitz

Development of MM and AML models in a microfluidic chip system

R

Annika Reisbitzer

Functional Characterization of the SHIP1-Domains Regarding Their Contribution to Inositol 5-Phosphatase Activity

M

Spike Murphy Müller

Proteomic Landscape of Colorectal Cancer Derived Liver Metastasis Reveals Three Distinct Phenotypes With Specific Signaling and Enhanced Survival

J

Manfred Jücker

10:30

Coffee Break

11:00

Workshop G: Differentiation, Stress, and Death

Intercellular communication of cell stress and death signals by ACBP/DBI

Guido Kroemer

The HDAC9 risk locus controls inflammasome-dependent chronic inflammation

A

Yaw Asare

Linear ubiquitination at damaged lysosomes induces local NF-kB activation and controls cell survival

v

Sjoerd van Wijk

SHP-2 phosphorylation controls its catalytic activity, as well as PD1 and TCR binding.

L

Björn Lillemeier

12:15

Announcement of Raffle Winners

12:30

Workshop H: Growth Factors and Neural Signaling

Characterisation of the honokiol derivative LRK071 as a dual-specific RXR agonist and PDE4 inhibitor

C

Christine Coffey

Aberrant expression of the MID1 Protein in neurons of Huntington's disease brain

G

Adriana Geraci

13:00

Presentation of Awards

13:15

Farewell Snack / End of Meeting

The STS aims at making the meeting attractive and affordable especially for young scientists.

As in recent years, the regular meeting fees cover lunches, dinners (without beverages) and catering during coffee breaks and poster sessions throughout the meeting. Moreover, the traditional personalized STS coffee mug are also included in the registration fees.

Please note that accomodation costs are not included in the meeting fee, so you are free to arrange bookings by yourself.

We would like to stress that the fees for STS members do not even cover the effective costs for individual participants.

The deadline for abstract submission is currently set to September 30 . After logging in to the password-protected area of our website (upper right corner of the website or "burger" menu on mobile devices), creating and submitting an abstract is easy: select "My Abstracts" on the left-hand side and add an abstract (3000 characters maximum for main text) by clicking on the "+Add abstract" button. You can revise this abstract as a draft as often as you like. After clicking on "Submit", the abstract is finalized and can no longer be edited. In this case, however, changes can still be made - please contact the webmaster.

By 13 October 2025 at the latest, you will be informed by e-mail about further details, e.g. date, time and type of presentation (if you have chosen "Talk or Poster").

In 2025, there will be a premiere: On November 3, at the start of the festive evening reception, three to five participants will have the opportunity to present their work as part of a Science Slam. You can prepare your presentation as a poem, with musical accompaniment (a piano is available), or whatever you like the most, but the final plan should be discussed with the program committee in advance. If you want to apply for the slam, just send an e-mail with a short summary of your presentation plans to slam@sigtrans.de. If the audience cheers you the most, you will win not only the hearts of the other participants but an attractive cash prize, too. So, just take your chance and get on stage!

Of course, you can also submit another abstract to be presented as poster or talk.

All accepted poster contributions will be on display (poster format: DIN A0, upright, 84,1 cm x 118,9 cm) throughout the Meeting in an assigned poster area together with the sponsors’ exhibition. This comfortable area can be used for vivid discussions at the posters during the coffee breaks. Ample time will be reserved for poster viewing and discussion.

“My Poster in a nutshell" presentations

In addition, all accepted posters can be presented to the plenum in one of the Short Talk Sessions as a concise One-Minute-Short talk. Please prepare one PowerPoint Slide containing key aspects of your scientific contribution to attract participants to your poster. After the short talk presentation it will be possible to meet at the posters for further scientific disussions.

STS Science Award

This prize is meant to honor outstanding research by a post doc or a junior principal investigator being member of the Signal Transduction Society. In 2025, the STS Science Award will be donated with a sum of 1500,- Euro.

The jury board consisting of the STS council and STS advisory board members will evaluate the applicants’ scientific achievements and background in general and discuss the meeting contributions in detail in order to finally take their decision on the awardee.

GBM-Innovation-Award for Young Scientists

Each year on the occasion of the STS Joint Meeting “Signal Transduction - Receptors, Mediators and Genes”, the Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology/Gesellschaft für Biochemie und Molekularbiologie e.V. (GBM) announces the GBM-Innovation-Award for Young Scientists, donated with EUR 500,–.

The prize will be granted to a young scientist (diploma, master, MD or PhD student or post doc within their first years) who is developing or has developed a novel and innovative method, which might be attractive for all of us. The work has to be submitted as an abstract to the STS-Meeting and must be presented also as a poster, even if the abstract is selected for oral presentation. The awardee will be announced at the Award ceremony. Awards can only be received personally.

The award jury consisting of the speakers of the GBM-Study Groups “Biochemical Pharmacology and Toxicology” and “Receptors and Signal Transduction” will select appropriate candidates.

STS travel stipends

In 2025, the STS will award ten young scientists travel stipends (350 EUR each).

For more details, please also refer to the Prizes / Travel grants section of our website.

Poster Prizes

Five poster prizes will be awarded during the meeting. The candidates will be selected by the chair people of the different sessions.

The prize money will be paid by bank transfer, provided that the prize winners attend the award ceremony in person.

The STS Meeting will again take place in the Leonardo Hotel Weimar, located in the world heritage city of Weimar, Germany.

Leonardo Hotel Weimar

Belvederer Alle 25 - 99425 Weimar

Accomodation rates at the congress hotel are usually quite low as compared to other hotels located in the city centre. You can reach the congress venue starting from the central train station by bus (line 1 / direction Ehringsdorf --> get out at "Falkenburg" bus stop) or by taking a stroll (takes you about 40 minutes).

If you travel by car, you may either choose to park at the hotel's own parking lot or parking garage (charges apply) or search free parking space in the adjacent streets.

The industrial exhibition of sponsoring companies will take place in an approximately 400 square meter area together with the poster exhibition in order to concentrate and facilitate interactions between the conference participants and the industry.

We are very grateful to all companies who want to support the STS Meeting.

If you are interested in sponsoring the meeting, please contact Katharina Hieke-Kubatzky. The subscription for industrial sponsors can be downloaded here:

Sponsor Subscription Form (English)

Sponsor Subscription Form (German)

Sponsors of this year's meeting as of 29 September 2025 are:

Sponsors of the Meeting 2025