Rebekka Salzmann

• Post by: fantom
• 29 April 2025
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Introduction

My name is Rebekka Salzmann, and I’m from Germany. During my Bachelor’s in Biology at the University of Hamburg, I became fascinated by the complex mechanisms that govern the small components of our bodies. I still remember the excitement of understanding the selectivity mechanism of potassium channels. The exam was tough, not designed for biology students, but the challenge of it motivated me to pursue this field.

This led me to apply for Master’s programs in molecular medicine and biochemistry, with a preference for international programs in English to enhance my career prospects and international opportunities. I was accepted into my preferred Master’s program in Biochemistry at the LIMES Institute at the University of Bonn. The classes per year are relatively small and closely linked to the Master’s program of Immunology, providing me with excellent education and hands-on experience that helped me define my research focus.

For my Master’s thesis, I worked with Veronika Lukacs-Kornek and Miroslaw Kornek on developing a liquid biopsy-based scoring system to differentiate between two types of primary liver cancer. This challenging experience resulted in several publications, both as first and second author, and confirmed my passion for cancer research. I also wanted international experience, so I began looking for PhD opportunities abroad in the field of liquid biopsy.

I found this opportunity with Lara Mussolin’s group in Padova, Italy, where I focus on the role of extracellular vesicles and blood-borne markers in relapse mechanisms of pediatric ALK-positive anaplastic large cell lymphoma. In my first year, I developed protocols to generate tumor-associated macrophages in vitro and co-cultured them with ALK+ ALCL cell lines. I studied how these interactions affected the cancer cells’ behavior, such as migration, invasion, and clonogenic ability, and how they influenced the cell cycle. My findings suggest that tumor-associated macrophages can induce a dormant state in ALCL cells, which in turn reprogram the macrophages, creating a tumor-supportive niche. Therefore, I sequenced the transcriptome of both, ALCL and macrophages at several time-points of co-culture.

In parallel, I also analyzed the blood secretome of 20 pediatric patients—at diagnosis, follow-up, and relapse—to uncover immune signatures. Moving forward, I am developing a microfluidic chip to study macrophage–tumor cell interactions in real time using live-cell microscopy. Moreover, I will perform spatial proteomic analysis on tumor biopsies from relapsed and remission patients and then validate my findings both in vitro and in vivo using a zebrafish reporter model.