At this year's Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuropediatrics in Dortmund, DE in November, we were represented with a NCL symposium on immunomodulation with top expert speakers:

Prof. Jutta Gärtner, University Medical Center Göttingen: The role of the immune system in lysosomal storage diseases

Prof. Rudolf Martini, University Hospital Würzburg: Pathogenic inflammatory reactions in the CNS of CLN mouse models: Opportunity for treatment options with immunomodulators?

Dr. Guido Goj, Vestische Kinder- und Jugendklinik Datteln: Clinical course of children with CLN3 under fingolimod treatment

Dr. Angela Schulz, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf: New treatment options for pediatric dementia NCL - An overview and outlook

The lectures were very well received, and we would like to thank the presenters for their commitment!

We are delighted that our PCR gene diagnostics course for NCL is now being offered at another school laboratory in Germany: The B!Lab, the biolab in Brakel in North Rhine-Westphalia, has added the NCL student course to their program starting in the 2023/2024 school year. It is the third one in addition to the school laboratories in Hamburg and in Berlin.

The fact that we are on the right track with our school program is shown by feedback we recently received. It shows that we arouse young people's interest in NCL, and give them inspiration and impetus for the future:

"I would like to thank you. My school, Matthias-Claudius-Gymnasium in Hamburg, had a learning partnership with your foundation years ago. This learning partnership encouraged me to study and go into research. I am now in Finland and am currently doing my Master thesis in a working group focusing on pediatric neurology. One of the projects I am currently working on involves characterizing a mouse model for a subtype of NCL. So for me, this has come full circle. Thank you again!" Jessica M.