In an exciting development for 2024, our colleague Dr. Birte Seffert embarks on a nationwide tour to meet with the Klaus Tschira Boost Fund Fellows across Germany. The Keeping Up with the Boost Fellows series aims to shine a spotlight on the journeys, challenges, and achievements of our Fellows. 

Stefanie Bärthel, translational cancer researcher, just moved a big step forward. Two years after her PhD she became group leader at the BioMed X Institute in Heidelberg in a very interesting and competitive selection process.

Stefanie’s research focus is on tumor microenvironment states, specifically in pancreatic cancer. Because pancreatic cancer is very aggressive, and therapy-resistant, and there are no treatments effectively helping patients now, she and her team investigate immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment states to identify novel therapeutic vulnerabilities or targets for combinatorial therapies or immunotherapies. In her Boost Fund project, she analyses cancer-associated fibroblasts, a cell type making up most of the tumor mass making this tumor type very stiff, solid, and hindering effective drug delivery, via a novel approach never been done so far.

You are carrying out your project in collaboration with various labs and have so far been based at both TU München and DKFZ. Why are collaborations so important in your field of research and what do you think is important when setting up and carrying out collaborations? 

During my doctorate, I could see from my supervisor that he initiated many collaborations and shared expertise. As a lab, you can no longer carry out all methods at a high level. For example, I lacked the equipment and expertise for proteomics. It is very important to have a reliable partner who can help me with sample preparation and data analysis. In return, I can provide expertise in cancer research or with single-cell methods.

I also enjoy working in a team. It makes me more productive, and more efficient and gives me a whole new perspective. I realised this during my visit to Felix Meissner’s lab in Bonn. They gave me new input for my research, which I probably wouldn’t have thought of on my own. That’s always very enriching. That’s why it’s also important for me in future to continue building and nurturing collaborations.

You are now moving to Heidelberg to become a group leader at the BioMed X Institute. Would you like to tell us how this came about?

It was a bit of a coincidence. I saw the call in a postdoc newsletter. I found the BioMed X Institute interesting because it is at the interface between academia and industry as every project is a collaboration with a pharmaceutical company. However, it is still a research institute with links to the DKFZ and other academic resources , which is very important to me.

I dared to apply directly as a group leader. For the application, I wrote a research proposal and was invited to a BioMed X boot camp. That was a very interesting and challenging experience. During the five days of the boot camp, each team had to prepare a project proposal. At the very beginning of that week, each person introduced themselves and was then assigned by an algorithm to a team, such that each team had a group leader, a postdoc, and a PhD student candidate I had a great team, we had really good team chemistry. And the best thing is that they are now actually going to work with me. Wow! I got to know them so well over that week.

On the last day, the project ideas were pitched to a jury from BioMed X and the pharmaceutical company. In my case, it was Ono Pharmaceutical from Japan.

After I received the group leader offer, I thought about it for a week and then accepted. Now I’m very much looking forward to this new challenge and research environment. I’ll have a small team of four people, an exciting research project and the opportunity to get to know Japanese culture as well.

Yes, it shows! When you talk about it, you look enthusiastic and radiant. You once said that the #KONU career workshop series and your peer team also encouraged you to apply.

Yes, exactly. The food for thought from the career workshops played a big part in my being able to imagine becoming a group leader and applying in the first place. And, of course, the peer group interactions. One of my peers also became a group leader and told me a lot about it. Then it was no longer so far away for me. I learned so many tools, and I am able to reflect and prioritise.

I think it’s very important to get input from outside and new perspectives. If you’re only at your institute and only in one lab, then you’re very much in a tunnel and sometimes don’t even realise what great opportunities you have and how you can develop further. That’s why I’m very grateful for these workshops and, above all, for the peer group, which allows me to look at myself from the outside.

The KT Boost Fund is a joint program of GSO and the Klaus Tschira Foundation for postdoctoral researchers in the Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Computer Science. It offers flexible funding for risky and interdisciplinary research on the way to academic independence. Funding can be used to hire staff, buy equipment, or build collaborations – tailored to the research project.

Did you know that a career development program is part of the Boost Fund? This includes workshops, individual coaching, and the forming of peer teams to get to know each other better and support each other during their funding and beyond.