5th LMU-ChAN Scientific Forum 2021
The Scientific Forum is a platform for networking and interdisciplinary dialogues within the LMU-China Academic Network. It took place from 25 to 26 November 2021.

The Scientific Forum is a platform for networking and interdisciplinary dialogues within the LMU-China Academic Network. It took place from 25 to 26 November 2021.
The LMU-ChAN Scientific Forum has been one of the most important and visible instruments of cooperation between LMU and members of the LMU-China Academic Network since 2015. It not only mirrors and advances the cooperation on an institutional level, but above all fosters its academic dimension. The encounters in the workshops and during the Plenary Session are and have, in many cases, been the starting point of new cooperation. The Forum also offers the perfect opportunity to overcome not only geographical boundaries but also to break down the boundaries between the scientific disciplines. While this year the event had to take place in an online format, staying in touch has become even more important during the ongoing travel restrictions.
The Plenary Session is the online opening event of LMU-ChAN Scientific Forum. It informs about the ChAN network, introduces the partners and provides information on funding opportunities.
This year it also included the 15th anniversary celebrations of the LMU-CSC scholarship program.
9:30/16:30
Welcome speech
26 November - 8:30/15:30 (3h)
Chair:
Further Speakers:
Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather and climate events, which are affecting all countries in especially cities. Developing countries with fast urbanization are particularly at the greatest risk of climate hazards. Left unattended, climate hazards are likely to increase damages, worsen inequalities, exacerbate social insecurity and cause health problems, among other hardships.
The universal consensus attested by the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provides a unique opportunity to build climate resilience for sustainable development by addressing the structural inequalities that perpetuate poverty, marginalization, social exclusion and vulnerability to climate hazards. To be successful, disaster risk reduction and resilience building must be part of a broader development framework which incrementally leads various ways to the empowerment of today’s growing urban areas.
This workshop aims to gather experts from the LMU-ChAN network and to establish research collaboration for long-term investigations of climate change impacts, urban resilience and sustainability in both China and Europe and beyond.
26 November - 8:00/15:00 (1,5h)
Chair:
Further Speakers:
Universities around the globe are facing increasing demands to demonstrate how they contribute to solving grand challenges and addressing sustainable development goals. As a result, research, teaching, and transfer activities are increasingly being evaluated in terms of potential and actual impact. In this workshop, we focus on the centrality of purpose to the research process. Further, we will identify opportunities for and impediments to the accessibility of scientific intelligence and realization of impact. Specifically, the workshop will engage participants in reflections to investigate the question: How can we ensure that the knowledge we produce creates value for society? We will discuss examples for successful knowledge transfer across all disciplines including commercial (e.g., licensing, spin-offs) as well as non-commercial formats (e.g., advisory, co-creation, community engagement).
To structure the interactive session, we draw on a research-based coaching program developed to enable startups to integrate impact and commercial logics. We ask ourselves what impact science has and how we can manage it. We will share workshop insights in a follow-up white paper and provide a self-reflection tool that can be used to continue the discussion at the home institutions. The workshop is open to researchers from all disciplines.
25 November - 8:00/15:00 (2h)
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Speakers:
Neuroinflammation is a hallmark of many neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Microglia is a key immune regulator for inflammatory response in the central nervous system (CNS). In this workshop, we invite experts from LMU and China to present their up-to-date findings covering basic mechanistic studies on microglia to potential therapeutic applications in neurodegenerative disease. These topics provide important aspects not only in basic research but also for clinical application. We seek to establish and expand Chinese-German scientific cooperation to 1. better investigate the importance of microglia in the pathomechanisms of neurodegenerative disease; 2. better understand the crosstalk between microglia and other CNS cells in the context of neuroinflammation; 3. Explore potential therapeutic strategies targeting neuroinflammation.
26 November - 8:00/15:00 (2,5h)
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Further Speakers:
Cell-identity and –plasticity are fundamental but opposing states in allcells of complex organisms. This is exemplified in developmentalprocesses, in which stem cells give rise to differentiating progeny, andin wound healing, where differentiated cells have to gain dynamiccapacity to enable regenerative processes. These processes are wellinvestigated for mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) and for the acquisitionof mesenchymal traits in non-mesenchymal cells, - including tumorcells. MSC are recruited to wounds and coordinate inflammatory andregenerative events. Furthermore, Eepithelial cells can adoptmesenchymal features (in a process termed epithelial to mesenchymaltransition; EMT) allowing tissue restructuring. It is also well established that mesenchymal signaling cues derail in tumorigenesis and pose a major barrier for therapy, as EMT provides carcinoma cells with invasive properties and increased resistance to standard therapy regimens.
Experts from different fields of preclinical- and clinical-oncology highlight key-aspects of stemness and mesenchymal biology to expand and refine tumor therapy. This focuses on a fascinating aspect of cell-biology with great clinical importance, and a flourishing area of Chinese-German scientific cooperation. We seek to establish and expand existing Chinese-German collaborations to: 1. better understand the importance of EMT-like processes in the context of tumor biology, 2. better characterize the interaction between the tumor milieu and the tumor entity, and the pathways that transmit and interpret these critical signals, and 3. apply therapeutic strategies based on this phenomenon.
26 November - 9:00/16:00 (2h)
Chair:
Speakers:
Unresolvable inflammatory diseases include cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancers representing the major health burdens in Germany, China and worldwide. These diseases have in common that they cause unparalleled human suffering while treatment options are limited. Novel technology tool boxes have been applied to explore the pathogenic mechanisms of these diseases including next generation sequencing (NGS), single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), tissue RNA sequencing, genome-wide microarray RNA profiling, proteomics, imaging technologies and the use of transgenic mice. Using these state-of-the-art methods, large amounts of data are generated that by far exceed the analytical ability of an individual and therefore largely escape human analysis. Therefore, unparalleled new types of complex digitalized analytical tools and new algorithms are needed with the help of large computers. Moreover, enormous amounts of data that are generated by recently developed experimental, imaging and treatment platforms need to be integrated into existing platforms, compared, evaluated and - most importantly - interpreted in skillful ways for the good of our patients. Tools of artificial intelligence/machine learning emerge as forceful new approaches to achieve these goals. In this workshop, we invited experts from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU)/Munich, the Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU)/Guangzhou, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)/Hongkong to illustrate the power of combining human and artificial intelligence tools in diseases as varied as atherosclerosis, cancer and Huntington’s disease.
25 November 13:00/20:00 (2h)
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Further Speakers:
26 November - 8:30/15:30 (1,5h)
Chair:
Further speakers:
In this panel, we approach the topic of “intelligence” from the perspective of Chinese literature, theatre and cinema. Some of the contributions deal with the representation of various forms of intelligence as expressed within a certain text. Others focus more on intellectual processes which shape the basis for producing or understanding a text.
25 November - 8:00/15:00 (1,5h)
Chair:
Further speakers:
Naturkatastrophen liefern uns Beispiele für die Herausforderungen, vor denen sich die entwickelten Gesellschaften der Moderne unerwartet gestellt sehen: Sowohl die Atomkatastrophe von Fukushima als auch die Wellen der Corona-Epidemie stellen zivilisatorische Bedrohungen, die an historische Ereignisse wie Erdbeben oder Sturmfluten erinnern, die als göttliche Strafgerichte gedeutet; welche Bedeutungszuschreibungen erfahren die Naturkatastrophen in unserer Zeit, der des Anthropozäns?
Der Workshop möchte solche Fragen stellen, in historischer Perspektive und im Gespräch zwischen chinesischen und deutschen Literaturwissenschaftlern.
25 November 8:00/15:00 (1,5h)
Chair:
Further speakers:
LMU Munich was the first German university to sign an agreement with the China Scholarship Council (CSC) to support Chinese doctoral students at LMU Munich. Since the arrival of the first group of students in 2006 almost 500 CSC PhD scholarship holders have come to study at LMU Munich within the program. The anniversary of the successful program was celebrated during the Plenary Session of the 5th LMU ChAN Scientific Forum.
International Office
LMU-China Academic Network (ChAN), LMUexchange: Mainland China, Hongkong, Taiwan