New formal structure of the Stem Cell Network North Rhine-Westphalia

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Funded by the Ministry of Science of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the newly founded association “Stammzellnetzwerk.NRW” (in English: Stem Cell Network NRW, same name as before) will take over all former activities of the Stem Cell Network from 2019 onwards (see article “Tradition and innovation: Celebratory foundation of the association ‘Stammzellnetzwerk.NRW”).

Founding members of the association are 19 universities, university hospitals, and non-university research institutions based in NRW, who are performing research in the field of stem cells or who apply the results of stem cell research. Please see this PDF for an overview of all 19 founding members. Legal representatives of all founding institutions came together on September 5, 2018, to found the new association (see press release ).

Additionally to the assembly of members, the new association comprises a representative assembly as a further committee. Several tasks of the members’ assembly were delegated to the representative assembly, which was elected on September 5 by the members’ assembly. Prior to the founding of the association, all members nominated scientists for the representative assembly. Each member institution is represented with at least one person in the representative assembly, who are almost all scientists actively involved in stem cell research. 

The new board was elected at the foundation ceremony as well and will officially take over from January 1, 2019, onwards. The following persons were elected:

• Prof. Dr. Oliver Brüstle, University Hospital Bonn (chairman)
• Prof. Dr. Jens Brüning, University of Cologne
• Prof. Dr. Peter Horn, University Hospital Essen (biomedical speaker of the representative assembly)
• Prof. Dr. Bettina Schöne-Seifert, University of Münster
• Prof. Dr. Dieter Sturma, University of Bonn (ELSA speaker of the representative assembly)

Furthermore, the newly founded association will comprise an advisory board and a board of trustees. The federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia will send a representative to the latter one.

Science institutions in North Rhine-Westphalia, who are active in the field of stem cell research and who are interested in joining the new association, please contact the main office.