The conference started with an “opening lecture” held by Prof. Dr. Xin Sun from the University of California in San Diego, and was followed by Prof. Dr. Anna R. Hemnes from Vanderbilt University, USA. Further guest lectures featured “The ethics in Science and Medicine” by Monsignor Tomasz Trafny, “The President´s Lecture” by Prof. Guy Joos, and “The Global Health Lecture” by Prof. Daniel B. Jernigan.

Last but not least, “The Editor´s Lecture” took place on Friday with Prof. Fiona Godlee and Prof. Jesus Perez Gil from the University of Madrid. They presented a talk about “Refocusing the pulmonary surfactant paradigm”.

In total, 93 students and invited speakers participated in the Annual Retreat and gave exciting oral and poster presentations about lung development, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, pulmonary vascular disease, hypoxia and cardiac consequences of pulmonary vascular disease,  inflammatory events in lung disease, airway aspects of lung disease, influenza and acute lung injury, chromatin remodeling and epigenetics as well as pulmonary fibrosis.

It was a very stimulating Annual Retreat and I was very pleased to be invited to represent the DZL site BREATH and to also share my own data. The event was a great chance to meet other PhD students and scientists from USA, Spain, Vatican City, Belgium and Germany.

By Berenice Rath