At the end of this year we had a lovely Christmas party on December 5th.
In addition to delicious food and drinks, we had fun playing secret santa. We had a lot of time to talk to each other and enjoyed a great time together. So after the Christmas holidays we can start the new year relaxed and full of enthusiasm.
With this in mind: Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

40 years of “Together for Mental Health” in Bochum. Under this motto, the management of the LWL Clinic Bochum invited the employees to the “Mix Tape 1984” party on November 15th. It was a lovely evening with lots of surprises and good food in Haus Kemnade. A nice opportunity to exchange ideas with colleagues you don’t see every day. Thanks for the great organization and the nice evening.

I hope to see you there.

The Faculty Day took place on October 25, 2024 in the RUB event center.
From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., prospective doctoral students and students interested in research were able to exchange ideas personally with RUB clinics, institutes and departments. There were various lectures and a poster exhibition, in which we also took part. Nadja Freund and Julia Aslan presented their posters on our research focuses in the laboratory.

We are very pleased to welcome Lukas Fix for his W module and Julia Bösner for her S module in our laboratory. Here’s to  great 6 weeks together.

This year’s annual meeting of the German Society for Bipolar Disorders (DGBS) took place from September 12th to 14th in Frankfurt am Main.
Members of our working group actively participated. Last year’s poster prize winners, Patrick Reinhardt and Kirsten Schmerder, gave a talk about their previous research results and Candy Theis and Julia Aslan presented posters. Nadja had organized a symposium on psychedelics and bipolar disorder. We are particularly pleased that our work group again won a poster prize. Candy made second place with her poster and we are very proud of this great achievement.

We welcome two new Erasmus students from Turkey to our laboratory. Over the next two months, the two of them will get an insight into our experiments and structures in the laboratory. We are looking forward to a good cooperation.

The FENS Forum took place in Vienna from June 25th to 29th, 2024. In addition to interesting lectures, Kirsten and Candy took part in the poster presentation with their own posters. With so many impressions and a lot of work, sightseeing couldn’t be neglected. We are already looking forward to FENS 2026 in Madrid.

We are pleased to welcome Arina Demidova to our laboratory. She is completing her internship here and would then like to complete her bachelor’s thesis with us. Welcome and looking forward to working with you.

Nadja has been elected as deputy equal opportunities officer of the medical faculty. We are very happy that she will further promote equity between genders and contribute with great ideas to do so. Congratulations and stay tuned for upcoming events and initiatives. Feel also free to reach out to her if you have any questions or ideas.