General annual meeting September 2026, Dresden, Germany
APPEAL is looking back on a highly productive Annual Meeting in the heart of Dresden’s historic old town, hosted by our partner PharmAI Discovery on 8–9 September 2026.
A big thank you to the PharmAI Discovery team for the excellent organisation – including an inspiring guided tour through Dresden’s old town, a social dinner within historic walls, and a perfect closing with lunch and a demonstration of virtual screening tools in the in silico lab.
A big thank you to the PharmAI Discovery team for the excellent organisation – including an inspiring guided tour through Dresden’s old town, a social dinner within historic walls, and a perfect closing with lunch and a demonstration of virtual screening tools in the in silico lab.
The meeting was held in a hybrid format, bringing together 40 participants - 29 on site in Dresden and 11 online. Participants included our Project Officer, who joined remotely, as well as both members of our Scientific Advisory Board: Prof. Dr. Stefan Pöhlmann, who attended on site, and Prof. Dr. John Ziebuhr, who joined online.
Over the two days, the consortium reviewed the progress achieved during the 2nd project period, discussed priorities and activities for the recently started 3rd project period, and began preparations for the 2nd project review meeting following submission of the periodic report.
We were especially pleased to see several on-site presentations by early-career researchers from the virology teams of Caroline Goujon (CNRS, France), Mathieu Mateo (IP, France), and Tuna Toptan (TUM, Germany), as well as from the coordinator’s team led by Rainer König (JUH, Germany). The young researchers used the opportunity to present and discuss their scientific work carried out within APPEAL.
Over the two days, the consortium reviewed the progress achieved during the 2nd project period, discussed priorities and activities for the recently started 3rd project period, and began preparations for the 2nd project review meeting following submission of the periodic report.
We were especially pleased to see several on-site presentations by early-career researchers from the virology teams of Caroline Goujon (CNRS, France), Mathieu Mateo (IP, France), and Tuna Toptan (TUM, Germany), as well as from the coordinator’s team led by Rainer König (JUH, Germany). The young researchers used the opportunity to present and discuss their scientific work carried out within APPEAL.
Alongside the scientific Work Package updates on Day 1 and the sessions on project management, communication, dissemination and exploitation on Day 2, dedicated focus sessions provided valuable time to discuss the project roadmap and define the next steps for the upcoming activities. These included, among others:
A big thank you to everyone who contributed to two very productive days. We are already looking forward to next year’s meeting – under the motto:
“From Dresden to …?”
- advancing the most promising candidates towards in vivo testing;
- applying in silico virtual screening to already identified and upcoming targets to discover new compounds for subsequent experimental testing;
- selecting and validating targets for approaches based on small activating RNA (saRNA) and small interfering RNA (siRNA).
A big thank you to everyone who contributed to two very productive days. We are already looking forward to next year’s meeting – under the motto:
“From Dresden to …?”