PhD student Ilka Simons from Prof. Schreiner’s research group has been successful at RISE Germany – a programme through which the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) arranges research internships for North American, British and Irish undergraduate students at universities and non-university research institutions in Germany. Now, in May, student Raea Michie from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, will support Ilka Simons as an intern for two and a half months in the experimental work of her doctorate in Hannover.
Ilka Simons’ doctoral thesis is dedicated to adenovirus infection, which is divided into an early and a late phase. The early phase extends to the reprogramming of the cell for the purposes of the viruses, the late phase ends with the production of the virus proteins by the cell. “I am interested in when and why the change occurs. Because if the transition from the early to the late phase could be prevented, the viruses would no longer be able to replicate,” she says.
The photo shows: Prof. Schreiner and Ilka Simons in the laboratory of the MHH Institute of Virology, with a gel electrophoresis chamber. They use this to make key proteins of the adenovirus infection visible.