CRC 1644 Retreat 2026
In March 2026, members of CRC 1644 gathered in Halle (Saale) for three days of scientific exchange, collaborative thinking, and community building. For the first time, the retreat combined an internal day dedicated to collaborative publications with a two-day joint programme together with CRC 1664 "Plant Proteoform Diversity – SNP2Prot" from Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg.
Day 1: From Collaboration to Publication
The internal retreat day on 23 March was dedicated to a central goal of the CRC: turning cross-project collaboration into joint publications. In the weeks leading up to the retreat, PhD students and postdocs had formed cross-project teams and developed short written publication concepts – a deliberate invitation to think beyond their own projects and identify shared scientific ideas with colleagues from other groups.
On the day, all twelve teams presented their concepts in a focused pitch format: five minutes to present, five minutes for feedback from a thematic PI panel. The topics spanned the full breadth of the CRC's research agenda, covering temperature-driven developmental and hormonal plasticity, metabolic modelling, and phenotyping and data-driven approaches.
The afternoon shifted the focus to the wider community. Two new associated members, Daria Scintu and Philipp Wendering, introduced their research in short presentations – a welcome opportunity to get to know two colleagues whose work may play a role in the CRC's second funding phase. The day closed with the annual Members Meeting.
Days 2 & 3: Joint Retreat with SNP2Prot
The joint retreat on 24 and 25 March brought together the members of both CRCs for the first time in a shared scientific programme. The two consortia approach plant biology from complementary angles: CRC 1644 works top-down, from phenotypes to the genetic and molecular mechanisms that underlie their plasticity; CRC 1664 SNP2Prot takes a bottom-up, protein-centric perspective, investigating how genetic variants shape proteoform diversity and function.
Day 2 was dedicated to getting to know each other's research. It opened with introductory talks by the two CRC speakers Marcel Quint (MLU) and Michael Lenhard (UP), giving both communities an overview of the respective research programmes. This was followed by two sessions in which PIs from both CRCs presented their projects, highlighting thematic overlaps across developmental biology, metabolic modelling, protein biochemistry, and cell biology. The afternoon centred around a poster session with ECRs from both CRCs presenting their research in an informal and lively atmosphere, making first connections across both communities. The day ended with a joint dinner in the heart of Halle.
Day 3 was shaped by cross-CRC interaction and discussion. An invited talk by Alexander Förderer (MPI of Molecular Plant Physiology) on structure-guided engineering of plant-microbe interactions opened the morning and provided an external scientific perspective. The main part of the day was given over to two consecutive discussion rounds. In the first, participants came together in five focus groups organised around shared biological themes and modelling approaches to map existing expertise and identify methodological interfaces between the two CRCs. The outcomes were presented in plenary and fed into a second round, in which mixed groups of PIs and ECRs from both CRCs developed concrete ideas for joint activities. The retreat in Halle marked the beginning of what we hope will be a lasting collaboration between the two communities – and we are curious to see where these first conversations will lead.
The retreat in Halle was a productive three days for CRC 1644 – internally, with cross-project publication concepts taking shape, and externally, with a new scientific partnership with SNP2Prot getting off the ground. We look forward to seeing what comes out of both.
