CATCH ALL 2024 in retrospect

As 2024 ends, we at CATCH ALL are happy to reflect on a successful year of research, academic milestones, and engagement in ALL research.

Professional development
The researchers of CATCH ALL published 33 papers with collaborations between at least two principal investigators in journals such as Blood, Blood Advanced, and Leukemia among others. In addition, we also celebrated important academic achievements: Katja Klausz and Michael Forster completed their habilitations, and Marta Lustig finished her PhD. Congratulations!

Since October 2024, Prof. Gunnar Cario has been appointed as the new director of the newly established Clinic for Pediatric Oncology and Rheumatology of the UKSH Kiel. He also serves as the interim head of the new Clinic for Neonatology, Pediatric Pulmonology, and Neuropediatrics, following Prof. Martin Schrappe who retired by the end of September 2024. Prof. Cario, with his extensive background in pediatric oncology and hematology, is dedicated to improving therapies for children and adolescents with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). As head of the German ALL-BFM study group and study leader of the international AIEOP-BFM ALL consortium, he has been pivotal in advancing clinical research. Since 2022, he has also been a key project leader in the CATCH ALL Clinical Research Group, focusing on age-overriding studies.

Awards and more
Our work has been recognized at major conferences, with Martin Neumann receiving a best abstract award at the DGHO 2024 in Basel, Switzerland for his talk about “Molecular Classification of adult T-ALL treated on GMALL protocols”. Furthermore, several CATCH ALL members presented their research at the largest hematological conference worldwide, ASH 2024 in San Diego, 2024 with both Alina Hartmann and Lennart Lenk earning Abstracts Achievements Awards.

Our CATCH ALL events
We also hosted two major events this year. The summer school, featuring guest speakers Prof. Irmela Jeremias and Prof. Elmar Wolf, provided valuable insights to young researchers and set the basis for our grant application for a second funding period. The winter symposium, attended by 50 participants, featured talks by Prof. Jaques van Dongen (Universities of Leiden & Salamanca), Prof. Claudia Rössig (Münster University), Prof. Beat Bornhauser (Zürich University), Prof. Malte Spielmann (Lübeck University), and Dr. Mario Assenmacher (Miltenyi Biotec, Bergisch Gladbach).

Overall, 2024 has been a highly successful year for CATCH ALL. Now we are fully focused on 2025 with many important results to be published