#BALR2025 🫁 @cardiffuni.bsky.social what a fantastic 3 days 👏 lovely to see everyone and to present some #fibroblast data updates 🤗 Really high standard from all #ECRs and great #flashtalks #posters #presentations. Superb keynote from @tatalab-duke.bsky.social thanks @balrcommunity.bsky.social

A fabulous 3 days of science and connecting with 🫁 friends from across the UK #balr2025
So many new ideas! And great to see members of my team get lots of interest in their posters

🎉 The #BALR2025 early career competition went to Juma El Awaisi from University of Birmingham
🎉 The postgraduate competition went to Bethany Sawyer from @brisunipress.bsky.social
🎉 mid-career competition went to Polina Yarova from @newcastleuni.bsky.social
Congratulations! 2/2

#BALR2025 is over, and here are the winners of the competitions:
Poster competition
🎉 Mads Rossanese from @ucl.ac.uk
🎉 Katherine Ronchetti from The Children’s hospital for Wales
🎉 Sasha-Gaye Richards from @uniofnottingham.bsky.social
Congratulations all! 1/2

#BALR2025 organiser Renata Jurkowska doing closing remarks and thank yous to everyone who helped, organised and sponsored.

#BALR2025 is coming to a close. We are going out with a bang with lung regeneration superstar Prof Tata from Duke University.

And to close off the last session at #BALR2025 Ellen Jenkins from Uni of Birmingham is presenting on The impact of HIF-1 pathway activation on alveolar macrophage immunometabolism: implications for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

And now presenting ‘Leupaxin Orchestrates Proliferation and
Myofibroblast Transition in
Human Lung Fibroblasts’ is Petar Popov from @cardiffuni, at #BALR2025

And after PCLSs, we’re now onto epithelial-mesenchymal-endothelial organoids with Dr Anna Krasnodembskaya from
Queen’s University Belfast, now at #BALR2025.

Now for modelling lung development, repair and disease at #BALR2025, Dr Charlotte Dean from @imperialnhli.bsky.social who is going to present on her PCLS models to study lung injury and repair.

Last but not least for the mid-career competition at #BALR2025 Dr Bettina Schock from Queen’s University Belfast, presenting on ‘Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived fibroblasts reveal differences between Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) and SSc-IL.

The next contestant at #BALR2025 is Dr Polina Yarova from @newcastleuni.bsky.social presenting on ‘Calcium-sensing receptor
integrates polyamine metabolism with
inflammatory and fibrotic responses in bleomycin-induced lung injury.

The mid-career competition has kicked off on day 3 of #BALR2025 with @drmanuplate.bsky.social talking on the involvement of mTORC1 in defining the transcriptional identity of the CTHRC1+ fibroblasts.

Day 2 Keynote talk at #BALR2025 is by Alex Zhavoronkov , from In Silico Medicine speaking online directly from HK (where it’s 1am! 😴) on AI-assisted drug discovery.

Telling us about ‘Metabolic reprogramming in fibrotic lung diseases’
is Dr Brinnie Selvarajah from @ucl.ac.uk Reapiratory at #BALR2025.

‘Intranasal vaccines against respiratory viruses’ by Dr Carly Bliss from @cardiffunilib.bsky.social at #BALR2025.

Closing this session at #BALR2025 is Poojitha Rajasekear from @uniofnottingham.bsky.social on investigating cell-free DNA methylation in asthma.

Closing this session at #BALR2025 is Dr Timothy Hinks from @ox.ac.uk talking about Single cell and spatial studies in Asthma.

Next up at #BALR2025 Prof Luis Mur on metabolomics.

Another fantastic session is underway at #BALR2025 on ‘New kids on the block, leveraging new omics technologies for the discovery of new biomarkers and drug targets.’

First up is @alisonejohn.bsky.social from @imperialnhli.bsky.social on spatial transcriptomics.

Last but not least for the #BALR2025 postgraduate competition is Bethany Sawyer from @bristoluni.bsky.social

The second contestant in the #BALR2025 postgraduate competition is Darius Pease from @cardiffunilib.bsky.social

First up in the postgraduate competition at #BALR2025 is Kun Zheng from @unisouthampton.bsky.social

BALR President Prof Liz Sapey is now introducing the #BALR2025 postgraduate competition. In her message she highlighted the quality of all abstracts submitted.

Good luck to the three finalists!

Positions are open on the BALR committee, if U R at #BALR2025 & interested chat to us!
Open positions + who 2 talk 2:
- Chair @chrisscotton.bsky.social
- Treasurer @amandatatler.bsky.social
- Comms @drmanuplate.bsky.social
- Publications @meretelong.bsky.social
- Post doc rep Brinnie Selvarajah

The second #BALR2025 poster session is in full swing!

And another round of flash talks at #BALR2025, to get excitement up before the poster session.

And Angela Liu from Queen’s university Belfast presenting her summer student project at #BALR2025, with a Pulmonary Fibrosis Northern Ireland funded studentship.

If you are an undergraduate or medical student consider applying, next round launched in early ‘26, watch this space!

Now for some more summer student talks at #BALR2025, Darren Chow from Queen’s University Belfast and funded by Pulmonary Fibrosis Northern Ireland.

And to conclude this session at #BALR2025, @johnwholloway.bsky.social from
@unisouthampton.bsky.social talking about ‘Legacies of tobacco smoke: epigenetics and early life environment in the origin of respiratory diseases.