Yannik Schermer received the award for the best short presentation at the German Pharm-Tox Summit, the annual conference of the German Society for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, on March 28, 2025. Mr. Schermer is a doctoral student in the group of Professor Dr. Elke Richling at the Department of Chemistry, area of study Food Chemistry and Toxicology. He is working on the mass spectrometric analysis of cellular changes caused by pharmacologically and toxicologically relevant compounds.

Mr. Schermer uses untargeted mass spectrometry to elucidate the mechanism of action of pharmacologically and toxicologically relevant compounds. This involves identifying as many metabolites as possible and obtaining a comprehensive overview of the state of the biological system as a whole. This usually leads to complex data sets that are difficult to interpret and require sophisticated analysis procedures. Enrichment analyses have become established to facilitate this task. As part of his work, Mr. Schermer treated liver cancer cells with chemicals with known mechanisms of action and investigated the resulting changes in the metabolome. He evaluated the data sets measured using the timsTOF mass spectrometer with various enrichment analyses. He used the Over-Representation Analysis (ORA), the Metabolite Set Enrichment Analysis (MSEA) and the Mummichog algorithm. He was able to show that the results varied greatly depending on the method used. The Mummichog algorithm performed best. Mr. Schermer hopes that other researchers will be able to use his findings and ultimately make more reliable statements about the mechanism of action of new compounds.

The award for the best short presentation in the field of toxicology is presented annually at the annual conference of the German Society for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology (DGPT) and is endowed with €250. It is sponsored by the journal Drug Research published by Georg Thieme Verlag.

Three students from the class of 2024 have been honored with the Steinhofer Prize for their outstanding achievements in their chemistry studies. The Department of Chemistry at RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU) regularly presents the award as part of its annual academic ceremony. The Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Adolf Steinhofer Foundation is one of the largest foundations at RPTU in Kaiserslautern and was established in 1990 by the former head of research at BASF.

Carolin Kulosa, who completed her thesis in our working group last year, received the third prizefrom the Steinhofer Foundation for her outstanding performance. As part of her Master's thesis entitled "Detection and quantification of 3-hexene-2,5-dione as a reactive metabolite of 2,5-dimethylfuran in human liver microsomes", Carolin Kulosa investigated the metabolism of 2,5-dimethylfuran (DMF), a heat-induced contaminant in, for example, coffee or canned food. A concentration-dependent metabolization of DMF to the ring-opened metabolite 3-hexene-2,5-dione was shown. In addition, the isoenzyme mainly responsible for this metabolization was identified.

On 22.07.2024, students on the Master's degree course in Toxicology had the exciting opportunity to visit the CeMOS (Center for Mass Spectrometry and Optical Spectroscopy) at Mannheim University of Applied Sciences as part of the "Mass Spectrometry" module led by Prof. Dr. Dr. Niedner-Schatteburg. Prof. Dr. Richling and members of her working group were also given the opportunity to take part in the excursion, which was very enriching for everyone involved.

During the excursion, detailed insights were gained into the technology of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF). Since AG Richling in Kaiserslautern only works with ESI mass spectrometry (electrospray ionization) devices, all participants were able to learn a lot of new things.

After a short introduction by Prof. Dr. Carsten Hopf on the topic of MALDI-TOF and the research fields of CeMOS, the special highlight was the practical work in the laboratory. Under the supervision of Dr. Sandra Schulz, the students were able to prepare tissue sections of a mouse kidney themselves and prepare them for measurement on the Bruker rapifleX.

Through the practical work, the students were able to deepen their theoretical knowledge and gain a better understanding of the application of MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry in research. We would therefore like to thank the staff at CeMOS and Mannheim University of Applied Sciences for the informative and instructive time.

On March 5 and 6, 2024, the 2024 Workshop of the Southwest Regional Association of the Food Chemistry Society (LChG) took place at RPTU in Kaiserslautern. As part of the conference, young scientists were given the opportunity to present their current research to an interested audience. In addition, employees from various state research offices reported on current key topics. In addition to 19 exciting presentations, the participants were also able to examine 15 posters on various food chemistry and toxicology topics.

In addition to the scientific program, the participants were able to get to know the city of Kaiserslautern during a city tour and then exchange ideas over a cosy dinner.

We are delighted that this year's workshop could take place at RPTU in Kaiserslautern and would like to thank everyone who helped with the organization.