Seerave Community

Category: Seerave Community

Seerave Fellows Retreat 2021

This year we held the fourth Seerave Fellows Retreat from November 1 – 4, 2021, for the second time in an online setting. Despite being spread all over the world, flourishing study results, intense academic discussions and highly interesting perspectives shared by the entrepreneurial partners of the network as well as short virtual lab tours made this year’s retreat a success!

Here are the key highlights from the academic projects of this year’s retreat:

Controlled dietary interventions in melanoma patients (MDA):

The recruitment for the Phase 1 study on high fiber diet in melanoma survivors was completed and preliminary analysis showed shifts in the gut microbiome, circulating metabolites and cytokines. For the…

The Microbiota Vault is being launched in Switzerland

In 2018, Seerave embarked on the vision of Martin Blaser and Gloria-Maria Dominguez-Bello aiming to establish “The Microbiota Vault” – an initiative examining the potential of setting up a global repository of human microbiota. This repository, a “Noah’s Ark for microbes” would focus on the preservation of the current global diversity of the human microbiota, on backing-up global research collections and to further explore the role of the microbiome in health and disease. The launch of this important project was only possible thanks to philanthropic co-impact including Gebert Rüf Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation joining forces.

We hope others will join in as well!

For our German-speaking network: please have a look at the…

Microbiome Nutrition Seerave Community

Happy #WorldMicrobiomeDay 2021! 🎉

On World Microbiome Day we celebrate all things microbial, all around the world.

Today we would like to raise special attention to one of our initiatives: The collaboration between MyFoodRepo @EPFL and Microsetta @UCSD. Together they aim to roll out a US-wide citizen science project aiming to collect as much information as possible on everyday food items we consume. This information will help to train an algorithm that enables researchers in the future to better track nutrition and give more profound insights. Therefore…

We ask all of you to contribute to the microbe revolution: the “FoodRepo Scan” app is a new way #CitizenScientists can help advance the understanding between…

Seerave Community

Seerave Fellows Retreat 2020

We had been looking forward to meeting in person in Vienna this year but a certain virus has meant that this year’s Seerave Fellows Retreat had to be held in front of screens at home or in the office. Nevertheless, we are pleased to announce that the third Seerave Fellows Retreat from November 2nd – 6th, 2020 was as inspiring as always. A series of virtual meetings allowed the members of the network to update each other on the different research projects and also enable everyone to exchange skills and knowhow and discover further synergies within the network.

Next to holding the meeting virtually, this year’s meeting was set up slightly differently: Over the first three days outstanding presentations were…

Seerave Community

Review of the Seerave Fellows Retreat 2019 in Berlin

We are pleased to announce that the Seerave Fellows Retreat from 6. – 8.11.2019 in Berlin has been a great success. For the second time the fellows of the Seerave Foundation gathered to update on their current activities in different research projects, to further discover synergies and opportunities to exchange skills and knowhow.

In three days, outstanding presentations were given in a very open atmosphere and the room was filled with an enthusiasm to share and support each other. During the retreat, many new connections were made and ways to optimize current projects. For example, for observational projects at KCL and UMCG an explanatory video has been the result of a little brainstorming on how to improve current recruitment situation and how to ease…

Cancer Immunity Nutrition Seerave Community

Caloric restriction mimetics enhance anti-tumor efficacy

We’re happy to announce that the Seerave Fellow Dr. Jonathan Pol published part of his work entitled “A synergistic triad of chemotherapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors, and caloric restriction mimetics eradicates tumors in mice” in the journal OncoImmunology.

The lab of Professor Guido Kroemeber has recently shown that chemotherapy with agents inducing immunogenic cell death (ICD), such as anthracyclines (e.g. mitoxantrone) or the platinum salt oxaliplatin, can be advantageously combined with fasting or caloric restriction mimetics (CRMs) to reach a better control of tumor growth (1-3). The antitumor activity of the treatment depended on immune actors, particularly on CD8⁺ T cells. Among these CRMs, Jonathan Pol was particularly interested in further studying hydroxycitrate (HC) and spermidine (SPD). In this follow up study, Jonathan Pol and…