HIGRADE Conference 2015. Photo: Gunnar Dreßler/UFZ

HIGRADE Conference

At the HIGRADE Conference, doctoral researchers in their final year present their work and there are many possibilities for scientific exchange and networking. All UFZ colleagues and our cooperation partners are invited to join the event!

! SAVE THE DATE: HIGRADE Conference 2024 takes place on the 30 May 2024 !

Review: HIGRADE Conference 2023 (25 May)


The conference day started in the morning with a well-attended "warm-up", which was followed by lively discussions at the poster stands. The official part in the afternoon began with a welcome from Prof. Rolf Altenburger, after which almost 50 doctoral researchers presented short "pitches" (one-minute speed talks) to more than 200 visitors, inviting them to discuss their dissertation projects at their posters.


Sarah Unrath (ISOBIO) and Stembridge Ayuk (IMMU) moderated this lively part of the event, which produced some creative contributions. This was followed by the poster session with intense discussions over coffee and cake. Dr. Daniel Kaping (HIGRADE) moderated the final session, where prizes were awarded for the best posters and the best pitch. The best pitch was awarded as an audience prize. Here, Kabiru Nata‘ala Muhammad (UMB) gave a convincing presentation with musical accompaniment on "Uncovering the Hidden Role of Prokaryotes in Carbon Fixation from Marine Surface Water: Insights for Climate Regulation". The best posters were selected by a jury. The lucky winners of the book prizes are:
1. Jana Kachler (ESS): "More than biodiversity… Why do nature visitors value protected areas?"
2. Jasmin Heilemann (OEKON): "From rain-fed to irrigated agriculture? Projecting the future irrigation water demand in Germany using a hydro-economic multi-agent system model"
3. Victor Alfonso Castañeda-Monsalve (MOLSYB): "Screening the influence of 93 chemicals on a Human Gut Microbiota Model (SIHUMIx) using metaproteomics and metabolomics"

Furthermore, the 37 doctoral researchers of the UFZ who successfully completed their doctorate in 2022 were honoured. A special highlight during the session was the lecture by Andrea Büermann & Dr. Guy Pe'er (ESS) on the topic: "Citizen science: exciting, promising but also demanding! Example from VielFalterGarten".

Special thanks go to the UFZ Förderverein, which contributed the book prizes for the best posters and the best pitch. In addition, “BAM! Bock auf Morgen – Marketing For Future” contributed two tickets for the “BAM! Festival” in November as a prize. Furthermore, we would like to thank everyone who made the conference and the subsequent evening programme a successful event!

Agenda 2023

HIGRADE Conference Programme 2023 (pdf)

Posters 2023

  1. Linda Rigerte (BOOEK): Drought tolerant synthetic community from barley rhizosphere
  2. Fatemeh Dehghani Mohammad Abadi (BOOEK): Linking heat and matter turnover during microbial decomposition of glucose in soil to procedure of substrate application
  3. Saneesh Cherapurath Soman (BZF): "End of a conversation" (A conversation of a fresh ecologist with a shepherds from villages in Peninsular India taken a group of people to a three year long research.)
  4. Julián Equihua (CLE): Connectivity planning through deep reinforcement learning
  5. Jana Kachler (ESS): People and Nature - What values associate nature visitors with protected areas in Germany?
  6. Sarah Martin (PHYDIV): Effects of nitrogen and litter addition on germination and seedling growth of 75 grassland species
  7. Franziska Walther (PHYDIV): Spatio-temporal variation of zoophilous pollen traits within species - How diverse are pollen of insect-pollinated plants in space and time?
  1. Gangan Wang (ISOBIO): Direct-geneFISH to link antibiotic resistance gene presence and phylogeny in microbial populations
  2. Katharina Smaluch (SOMA): Heavyweight data: Microscale material balancing in microfluidics
  3. Xiaoyan Chen (TUCHEM): Optimization of pollutant removal from green roofs operated with low-polluted wastewater
  4. Pegah Fatehbasharzad (TUCHEM): Is electrosorption fit for the removal of persistent and mobile organic compounds?
  5. Yu Liu (UBT): Identification of enzymes responsible for anerobic transformation of sulfamethoxazole in sulfate reducing bacteria
  6. Christina Schäfer (UMB): Engineering microbial communities for the conversion of lignocellulose into medium-chain carboxylic acids
  7. Adrian Tüllinghoff (UMB): "From photons to product - Cyanobacterial whole-cell redox biocatalysis: Why? What? How much?"
  8. Jinyao He (UMB): "Electric field effects on sorption and microbial degradation of waterborne (urban) contaminants"
  9. Muhammad Kabiru Nata'ala (UMB): Uncovering the Hidden Role of Prokaryotes in Carbon Fixation from Marine Surface Water: Insights for Climate Regulation
  10. Gennuo Wang (UMB): Exploring the potential interactions of DNA viruses and their prokaryotic hosts in Bromoxynil and Control soils
  11. Laura Pause (UMB): "Anaerobic glucose uptake across the cytosolic membrane of Pseudomonas putida in BES"
  12. Hans Schneider (UMB): "Physiology of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 under biophotovoltaics conditions"
  13. Natalia Sánchez (UMB): The future of phytoremediation
  14. Die Hu (UMB): Did you know gut microbial stability may be linked with allergies? An exploration at atopic eczema in 10 years old children
  1. Sören Richter (BEN): Explorative scenarios for system integration of biorefineries in cascaded material flows within a future circular bioeconomy in Germany up to 2045
  2. Jasmin Heilemann (OEKON): From rain-fed to irrigated agriculture? Projecting the future irrigation water demand in Germany using a hydro-economic multi-agent system model
  3. Jan Sodoge (SUSOZ): Text-mining for assessing and analyzing socio-economic drought impacts
  4. Felix Klickermann (UPR): Management of Water Allocation Conflicts - Legal bases, empiricism, perspectives
  1. Yao Li (ASAM): How climate change affects the expansion and contraction of river networks
  2. Safae Aala (ASAM): Do land-cover mosaics affect the variability of suspended sediments in rivers? The case of large river basins in Germany
  3. Alexandra Schlenker (FLOEK): Stream food webs between degradation and recovery – the history of a multiple-stressed urban stream catchment
  4. Anne Jähkel (HDG, ASAM): Quantification of hydrologic turnover and its implications for nutrient uptake in streams
  5. Valeria Farez-Román (SEEFO): Winter diatom ecology in lakes
  6. Lipa Nkwalale (SEEFO): Evaluating synchrony among neighboring reservoirs through high frequency data
  7. Patrick Aurich (SEEFO): The floating membrane equilibrator: a low-cost device to measure CO2 concentrations at the water-atmosphere interface
  1. Masooma Batool (CHS): Long-term Trajectories of Soil Nitrogen Surplus Across Europe (1850-2019)
  2. Mohit Anand (CHS): Identifying compound weather drivers of tree mortality with generative deep learning
  3. Jalil Asadi (MET): Uncertanity quantification - Subjectivity in imaging and image fusion
  4. Lukas Flinspach (OESA): Reproducing alpine treeline ecotones in an agent-based model: the STEM
  1. Aurelio Giovanni Foscari Widmann Rezzonico (ANA): Biodegradation studies on tire tread particles: a comprehensive investigation on both leachates composition and particle changes
  2. Shuxian Gao (ANA): Multiple Deuterium Labelling: New Insights into the Fate of Organic Pollutants in Natural Waters.
  3. Silvia Dudasova (ANA): Automated data processing workflow: a tool for Ultra-High Resolution MS data used in PFAS molecular formula validation
  4. Laura-Fabienne Fröhlich (ANA): Biotransformation potential of xenobiotics in an in vitro Model of Human Gut Microbiota
  5. Orasai Faikhaw (ANA): Microplastic Contamination in an Urban River in Germany – Investigating and Tackling the Challenge of Organic-Rich Matrix
  6. Steffen Weyrauch (ANA): Aging of Tire and Road Wear Particles - Results of a Lab study
  7. Carolin Dahley (AUC): New insights into the passive membrane permeability of organic chemicals
  8. Soné Kotze (AUC): Quantitative considerations for active transport
  9. Nadia Katherine Herold (BIOTOX): Development of a Toxicity Fingerprinting System to Identify Acute Neurotoxicants in Larval Zebrafish
  10. Bernhard Kodritsch (BIOTOX): Linking toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics based on dose‐and time‐resolved internal concentration and effect data of selected compounds in the zebrafish embryo
  11. Illés Bock (BIOTOX): The role of toxikokinetics in the diagnostic assessment of chemicals by zebrafish embryo automated phenotyping
  12. Ziran Yin (IMMU): Different effect of BPA and its analogs on T helper 1 cell differentiation between male and females
  13. Victor Castañeda-Monsalve (MOLSYB): Screening the influence of 93 chemicals on the Simplified Human Gut Microbiota Model (SIHUMIx) using (meta)proteomics and metabolomics
  14. Stefanie Raps (MOLSYB): Unravelling the modes of action of Triclosan and its alternatives in human macrophages
  15. Jonas Gröning (OEKOTOX): Consequences of pesticide regulation on ecological risk in streams
  16. Isaac Tanui (WANA): Spatial Temporal Analysis and Risk Assessment of Organic Micropollutants in Western Kenya
  17. Julia Huchthausen (ZELLTOX): Investigation of chemical transformation processes in in vitro bioassays
  18. Weiping Qin (ZELLTOX): Role of bioavailability and protein binding of perfluoroalkyl substances in cell-based bioassays for quantitative in vitro to in vivo extrapolations

  • HIGRADE team
  • "Do-it" doctoral representation
  • Statistics Support
  • WTT - Knowledge and Technology Transfer
  • RDM - Research Data Management
  • UFZ Bioinformatics Service & Galaxy Server
  • UFZ International office
  • UFZ Family support office
  • Career Center