It’s one of the last days of 2024, a year full of surprises, challenges, toxic relationships, proud and sad moments. Did we achieve our goals? No, unfortunately not. It has been a year full of disillusionment in many aspects. But it has been also a year full of new beginnings, small success stories and preparing us for bigger things that will hopefully follow in 2025.
Some general reflections on daily modern dynamics and decisions for 2025:
In today’s world, resentment and jealousy seem to prevail everywhere. Instead of focusing on our own “business”, we often get caught up in scrutinizing others’ work, fueling unnecessary competition and division. The lack of teamwork, coupled with egoism, creates a toxic atmosphere where collaboration becomes a rare commodity. Sadly, this isn’t just a social media phenomenon—it’s embedded in our everyday interactions. Sad moments of misunderstanding and miscommunication are no longer isolated events but widespread occurrences. It seems like many people want to misunderstand each other on purpose – to do what? complain? spread toxicity? Or to try to “defeat” each other? It appears to be a total waste of energy.
Why do we spend so much time entangled in others’ affairs instead of concentrating on our own growth and contributions? Misinterpretation and judging without understanding the person or the context only deepen the divides, fostering toxic relationships. Social media platforms like X (formerly known as Twitter) exemplify this behavior in many ways. As such, we will not support any form of toxicity on any platform. It is sad to witness how a once-enjoyable platform like Twitter—where individuals could freely share opinions, spark meaningful discussions, and even foster scientific enthusiasm—has devolved into a place of hate and toxicity. During the past years, thanks also to these platforms, many people realized that #Inclusion, #diversity, & #equality are crucial aspects of our lives & have become integral in academia. 
However, while we advocate for this, many people face more and more discrimination, bullying and toxic behavior. As a result, we have chosen to disengage from actively participating on this platform. Moving forward, we will limit our presence there to sharing publications, lab news and job advertisements only.
Yes, we faced some disillusionment, but what else did 2024 bring to #TheUstunLab?
Despite moments of disillusionment and some disappointments, 2024 has been an incredibly productive year for us. One of our major accomplishments has been the establishment of a faculty-wide confocal microscopy platform, spearheaded by Üstün Lab postdoc Manuel González Fuente. The platform is already being utilized by more than 30 researchers from seven different groups across the faculty. We’re both proud and delighted to have successfully launched this initiative and look forward to growing it further in the future. We hope that other groups will follow suit, as diverse and impactful research can only thrive with access to a variety of cutting-edge platforms and facilities.
Research Highlights
This year has been challenging in terms of our scientific output, with some setbacks along the way. Unfortunately, we have yet to publish our major story from Gautier Langin (2023/2024), titled “ER-anchored protein sorting controls the fate of two proteasome activators for intracellular organelle communication during proteotoxic stress“. However, after thorough revisions, we are optimistic about submitting this work again in 2025.
In parallel, we have been finalizing Manuel’s manuscript, which explores how pathogens manipulate protein translation by targeting processing bodies (protein-mRNA condensates). Here’s a little teaser: the study is packed with exciting findings on condensating effectors, protein translation, the interplay of processing bodies and ER stress, and more.We aim to preprint this work in the first weeks of January 2025.
Another exciting project is Shanshuo’s postdoc paper, which uncovers how cell-type-specific autophagy responses shape plant-pathogen interactions. A sneak peek: stomata play a crucial role!
Beyond these individual projects, we’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with some incredible labs this year. In partnership with the labs of Alyona Minina, Simon Michaeli, and Yasin Dagdas, we’ve contributed to some exciting studies on autophagy and proteotoxicity. Working with friends and colleagues on collaborative projects is always a highlight, and we’re eager to continue fostering these relationships in 2025 and beyond. While the year has had its share of challenges, we are proud of the progress we’ve made and excited about what lies ahead. Onward to 2025!
Proud moments in 2024:
Although we may not have published as much as we had hoped, the members of #TheUstunLab have achieved remarkable success this year. Every team member actively participated in national and international conferences, showcasing their work through posters and talks.
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- 37th Molecular Biology of Plants Conference, Germany (Gautier, Talk)
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- International CRC1101 Symposium, Germany (all group members)
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- Plant Macro-and Microbiomes COS-EMBL Workshop for early career scientists (Margot and Manuel, Talks)
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- Plant Biology ASBP in Hawaii, USA (Margot and Manuel, Poster – Associate Featuring Editor meeting with editorial boards of Plant Cell and Plant Physiology)
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- Protease Meeting , Germany (Margot, Talk)
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- MadLand Anuual Meeting, Germany (Gautier, Talk)
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- ENPER, Portugal (Ophélie, Talk)
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- Plant Proteostasis conference in Vienna, Austria (all group members, Poster)
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- New Phytologist Symposium: Stomata, China (Shanshuo, Poster and Flash talk)
We were thrilled and proud to see our lab members recognized for their outstanding work this year. Manuel and Shanshuo received poster prizes, and Margot was honored with a talk award for her presentation at the Protease Meeting in Hohenheim.
We are growing: theÜstünLab receives funding to study processing bodies:
Another award for our lab came in form of additional funding for the continuation of Manuel’s project on processing bodies: Thanks to his great preliminary work and findings we were able to secure more funding to study how pathogens manipulate protein translation by targeting processing bodies (https://news.rub.de/english/2024-04-16-new-project-how-pathogens-disrupt-protein-synthesis-plants). Our team is committed to further exploring how pathogens disrupt this critical mechanism. With the generous support of approximately €565,000 from the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation’s “Rise Up!” funding program, we are excited to advance our research in this area. To support this effort, we welcomed Thorben Krüger as a postdoc and Wentao Luo as a PhD candidate. We are delighted to have these talented new members join us, further strengthening our “Protein Translation Unit.”
Other activities: from teaching and other highlights of the year
In 2024, we remained deeply involved in teaching activities. The members of TheUstunLab supervised four students during rotation modules, three bachelor theses, and one master thesis. We were particularly thrilled that Nazife Aydin and Nico Schulz completed their bachelor theses with outstanding results. It was truly a joy to introduce our students to the scientific principles and philosophy of our lab, and incredibly rewarding to witness their growth into the next generation of scientists.
This year, our own 5-week course, “Plant Cell Biology Meets Plant-Pathogen Interactions”, organized by Manuel and Suayb, gained even more attention. We decided to expand the course, accepting 10 students instead of the usual 6. Over the five weeks, students engaged in lectures on plant-microbe interactions, fundamental plant cell biology, experiments on proteostasis and plant immunity, and a fantastic seminar that explored recent papers in the field.Although teaching was demanding and exhausting, we thoroughly enjoyed the experience, particularly the opportunity to engage with the enthusiastic and talented bachelor and master students at RUB. We observed that smaller course formats foster faster learning, as students benefit from closer interactions with their supervisors and the ability to ask questions at any time. It is part of our lab’s philosophy to have close interaction with students, taking away the distance that academic teaching can create sometimes.
We are excited to expand our teaching responsibilities in 2025 and continue with our course, while also taking on new teaching opportunities. Additionally, we look forward to welcoming more bachelor and master students into our lab! While the workload is substantial, witnessing students’ growing passion for science and watching them evolve into future scientists is immensely rewarding.
Other highlights of the year:
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- Many happy hours in the faculty organized by Paul Gouguet
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- Visit to south tyrol and the institute in Laimburg
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- Being under review in one of the CNS journals
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- Lab visit to Tübingen and Vienna
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- Faculty party and our self-organized cocktail bar (too many Aperols)
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- Spain winning against Germany during the faculty party
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- Linus’ lab training in summer
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- Christa’s scientific visit to study phytoplasma effectors and their role in proteostasis
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- Chinese hotpot event with the lab (food coma)
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- Christmas potluck (food and glühwein coma)
Concluding remarks
Indeed, it has been an intense, exhausting, yet sometimes exciting and rewarding year for our team. We are relieved to close the chapter on 2024 and look forward with hope that 2025 will bring positive news and experiences. The coming year promises to bring new adventures, significant changes, and challenges for the Üstün Lab, but we have no doubt that our incredible team will tackle them together with determination and resilience. This year has been a journey of growth and learning. We’ve embraced persistence, learned to accept and stay true to ourselves, and mastered the art of ignoring toxic distractions to focus on our own work.
On that note: we wish everyone a joyful New Year and a fantastic start to 2025, from all of us at the Üstün Lab!
