Careers Day 2023: 4 high school students in the IMSF laboratory

As part of the TRR274 the Institute of Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Research (IMSF) participated in the nationwide “Careers Day” for girls and boys in Göttingen on 27.04.2023. The “Zukunftstag” tries to break with gender stereotypes and brings students closer to professional fields that often are associated with one gender over the other. Further, the aim of the event is to give students insight into the inner workings of scientific institutions and to give them an understanding of the how medical research is performed in the laboratory.

This year the IMSF welcomed four high school students to teach them more about one of our topics in the TRR274, namely understanding of the invasion of pathogenic immune cells into the central nervous system and the subsequent development of autoimmune nerve tissue damage, specifically in multiple sclerosis. In this context, the young people were shown in an easy-to-understand approach how immune cells migrate into the brain and spinal cord and can be visualized directly in the tissue. Under the guidance of our scientists Roger Cugota Canals and Dr. Henrike Körner, the young people were able to independently prepare frozen sections of tissue. These were then stained and viewed on the fluorescence microscope. In parallel, kerosene sections were also stained and viewed under a light microscope. In a theoretical part, Roger Cugota Canals explained the development of multiple sclerosis and the connection between the microscopic structures and the disease in a generally understandable way.