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Exploring the Molecular Architecture of the Cell

Archived News

2023

• ​​​​We hosted Biozentrum Seminars by Abhay Kotecha (Thermo Fisher), who showed us the developments in cryo-ET and by Luke Mackinder (Univ. of York), who told us about his team's efforts to understand carbon-fixing pyrenoids in diverse algae. Luke took the ISPP Dragon Trophy back to York.  ​[May 2023] ​

• ​​​​Ricardo and Ben wrote a highlight of the HDCR paper for CHIMIA, the journal of the Swiss Chemical Society.  ​[May 2023] ​

• ​​​​Ben gave student-invited talks at the Bijvoet Symposium near Utrecht, NL and the  IMPRS-LM Symposium in Dortmund, DE. The torch-led harbor tour was fun!  ​[May 2023] ​

• ​​​​We hosted Michał Gabruk from Jagiellonian University for a seminar at the Biozentrum, where he told us all about chlorophyll biogenesis.  ​[Apr 2023] ​

• ​​​​Ricardo gave a talk at the CCP-EM Spring Symposium in Nottingham, UK. He provided a look under the hood of our computational workflow, as well as a preview of how we use neural networks for membrane segmentation.  You can watch a recording here!  ​[Apr 2023] ​

• ​​​​Ben enjoyed giving seminars to local Basel colleagues at the Friedrich Miescher Institute and the Unibas Botanical Colloquium. Thanks for hosting, Dirk Schübeler and Klaus Schläppi.  ​[Apr 2023] ​

• ​​​​#WeFreezeOnTheBeach for the first stop on the TREC Environmental Sampling mission in Roscoff, France. Manon showed newcomers Sofie & Sophie how to collect algae from the ocean and freeze them onto EM grids for cryo-ET. Great team effort, and an exciting start to TREC!  ​[Mar 2023] ​

• Florent hosted a Biozentrum Seminar by Robert Englmeier, who showed us some cool mitoribosome structures and introduced us to his new company, CryoCloud.  ​[Mar 2023] ​

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• Ben gave a talk at the very nice EMBO Workshop on Visualizing Membrane Dynamics in Tel Aviv. Thanks for the invite, Alexey Amunts. Then Ben visited his amazing cousin Miriam Balaban in Rehovot and learned more about her rich history in scientific publishing (including some cool connections to the early days of structural biology).  ​[Mar 2023] ​​

• The Engel Lab in Engelberg!  Our lab went on its first retreat, and it was so much fun!!  We rented a cabin, hiked up a river gorge, rode a rotating gondola to the top of the Titlis, raced each other on sleds, ate way too much fondue, and had a bonfire under the stars. The complete Swiss experience :)  ​[Mar 2023] 

• We contributed two chapters to the new edition of The Chlamydomonas Sourcebook (a.k.a The Chlamy Bible). Ben teamed up with legend Ursula Goodenough to provide an Introduction to Chlamy Cell Ultrastructure, and Ben & Wojciech put together a fairly comprehensive look at the Supramolecular Organization of Chloroplast Membranes. We hope these chapters are useful. Please take a look! 👀  ​[Feb 2023] 

• ​Ben gave a talk at the EMBO Workshop on In Situ CryoET in Heidelberg and enjoyed an amazing keynote by Juergen Plitzko.  ​[Feb 2023] 

• Alicia Michael has joined our lab! ​Alicia loves transcription, chromatin, and circadian rhythms. Already an expert in cryo-EM, now she's taking the plunge and joining #TeamTomo! ...and getting to know our favorite "planimal", Chlamy! [Feb 2023] 

• Sofie van Dorst has joined our lab! Sofie is starting a PhD exploring how thylakoid membranes in algae and cyanobacteria adapt to changing environmental conditions by remodeling their molecular architecture.  This means playing with light and doing high-resolution cryo-ET of membrane proteins in situ. ​[Feb 2023] 

• Annemarie enthralled the audience with an awesome talk at the Plant Lipids GRC in Galveston, TX.  ​[Jan 2023] 

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• Caitie McCafferty has joined our group! Caitie brings her skills in mass spec, structural proteomics, and AI structure prediction, which she aims to combine with high-resolution cryo-ET to make the dream of Visual Proteomics a reality. She wants to build tools for exploring all organelles, but is particularly interested in comparing ciliary structures across evolution.  ​[Jan 2023] 

• Ben gave seminars at TU Kaiserslautern (thanks for hosting, Michael Schroda), the SNI PhD School Retreat in Uterwasser (thanks for hosting, Andreas Baumgartner), and The SwissPLANT meeting in beautiful Les Diablerets.  ​[Jan 2023] 

2022

• Ben gave student seminars at the Universities of Neuchâtel and Fribourg. Thanks for hosting, Felix Kessler and Stefano Vanni!  ​[Dec 2022] 

• Ben took a trip to Japan for a talk at the Symposium on Photosynthesis and Chloroplast Regulation and invited seminars at Kwansei Gakuin University and Osaka University. Thanks for hosting, Yusuke Matsuda and Genji Kurisu! Then he gave a student seminar for our neighbors at Hochschule für Life Sciences FHNW. Thanks for hosting, Sebastian Wendeborn!  ​[Nov 2022] 

• We hosted a fantastic Biozentrum seminar by Clemens Plaschka from the IMP. The room was packed, and the science was stunning.  ​[Nov 2022] 

• Ricardo hosted a Biozentrum seminar by Tim-Oliver Buchholtz from the FMI, and we learned how about the development of cool AI denoising tools such as cryoCARE. ​ [Oct 2022] 

• Ricardo captivated the whole Biozentrum with his Discovery Seminar! ​ [Oct 2022]

• Hugo rocked the house during his EMBO Cilia workshop. Taking talks to a new level with heavy metal soundtrack!​ [Oct 2022] 

• Ben gave talks at Uni. Zurich, Birkbeck/UCL, Oxford, and the MRC Toxicology Unit Cambridge. Thanks for hosting, Zurich Microscopy Center,  Anthony Roberts, Simon Newstead, and Vito Mennella!  [Oct 2022] 

• The lab had so much fun sharing the wonders of photosynthesis with our many guests at the Biozentrum Open House. Thank you to our visiting scientist Serena Flori for the "Chlamy finger painting" activity, The kids loved it!  [Sep 2022] 

• Ben gave talks at the Zurich BSM PhD Retreat and CSSB Hamburg, while the lab went to the Electron Tomography Congress. The audience was wowed by awesome talks from Ricardo, Hugo, and Sven! It was also a reunion with our Munich Friends.   [Sep 2022] 

• Ben gave a keynote talk at the International Symposium on Phototrophic Prokaryotes. Team PI (Alistair, David, Luke, and Ben) victoriously took home the sporting prize!  [Aug 2022] 

•  #WeFreezeOnTheBeach, Iceland Edition! Manon, Annemarie, and Ben teamed up with members of the Schwab, Decelle, Dudin labs (& more!) for the final pilot mission of the EMBL Traversing European Coastlines (TREC) expedition. We collected algae from the sea and froze them onto grids at the Hafrannsóknastofnun marine station. Check out this nice EMBL news piece about our trip. Such a Fun Adventure!  [Aug 2022]

• Wojciech & Ben gave virtual talks at the ISPR International Congress on Photosynthesis Research, and Ben received The Jan Anderson Lecture Award.  [Aug 2022] 

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• Published in Science:
  Our collaboration with the Guichard/Hamel and Pigino labs, revealing the native architecture of the ciliary base in Chlamydomonas. We discovered molecular molecular assembly lines building IFT trains before they enter the cilium. Congrats Hugo for publishing your PhD paper!!  [Jul 2022] 

• Published in Nature:
  The enzyme HDCR is an electrical nanowire that stores CO2 by using the electrons from hydrogen. This reaction is very efficient due to the connectivity of the nanowires, which bundle into giant ring-shaped superstructures bound to the cell membrane. Thanks for the wonderful collaboration Schuller and Müller labs!  Get a preview in the Biozentrum Press Release.  [Jul 2022] 

• Published in Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine:
  Meet MemBrain, Lorenz's deep leaning-based program for the automated detection of membrane proteins in cryo-tomograms. Great collaboration with Tingying Peng at HelmholtzAI.  [Jul 2022] 

• Manon gave an exciting talk about the diatom pyrenoid at the CCM10 Meeting.  Princeton, NJ. Thanks for the invite, Martin Jonikas!  [Jul 2022] 

• Annemarie and Florent were both awarded SNSF Swiss Postdoctoral Fellowships! Annemarie will work on thylakoid biogenesis, and Florent will work on mitochondrial diversity in plants and algae.  CONGRATULATIONS!!!  [Jun 2022] 

• Ben gave a talk at the Joint Microbiological Colloquium in Tübingen.  Thanks for hosting, Khaled Selim, Iris Maldener, and Karl Forchhammer.  [Jun 2022] 

• Our lab had a great time at the DCI Inaugural Symposium in Geneva & Lausanne.  [Jun 2022] ​

• Annemarie & Wojciech represented our lab at the SwissPLANT conference in Meiringen, and Ben enjoyed meeting interesting colleagues at the annual EMBO YIP meeting in Heidelberg.  [Jun 2022] 

• Ben gave a talk at the ESCRT Biology Meeting in Madison, WI.  It was great to get to know this diverse field and make new friends.  [May 2022] 

• Ben gave a virtual talk at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK.  [May 2022]

• Our new Aquilos 2 is installed at the Biozentrum and fully operational. Many thanks Raffaele for the awesome service. Let's get milling!!  [May 2022]

• Welcome back Lenka (this time to Basel), and welcome to our new master's student Philippe! He will work with Hugo on cilia.  [May 2022]

• Annemarie Perez Boerema has joined our lab!!  She will work on the mechanisms of membrane remodeling and thylakoid biogenesis in both cyanobacteria and chloroplasts. Welcome to the group!  [May 2022]​

• Our cryOcean grant has been recommended for funding by the ERC! In this project, we will explore the molecular architecture of chloroplasts in diverse marine algae. We will examine how thylakoid membranes and pyrenoids are formed, and how they are remodeled in response to environmental changes.  [March 2022]

• Published in Nature Microbiology:
  ​Ricardo and Ben wrote a News & Views on two cool papers from the Pilhofer Lab, which used multiscale imaging approaches to reveal the structure and cellular context of two novel contractile injection systems.  [March 2022]

• The Cell Architecture Lab has moved to the Biozentrum at the University of Basel!  [March 2022]

• Ben gave virtual talks at the Berkeley Lab John Lawrence Seminar Series and the University of Regensburg RNA Lecture Series. Thanks for hosting, Setsuko Wakao and Thomas Dresselhaus.  [Feb 2022]

2021

• We virtually hosted Gregor Weiss for the HPC Seminar Series. He took us on a fascinating cryo-ET journey from cyanobacterial contractile injection systems to uromodulin filaments that fight bacterial infection.  [Dec 2021]

• Hugo gave a great talk on cryo-ET of the Chlamy Transition Zone in the ASCB cilia subgroup meeting. 
  ​Thanks for hosting, Susan Dutcher!   [Dec 2021]

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• Published in Nature Communications:
  ​Florent joins #TeamTomo with a dive into Chlamydomonas mitochondria. Combining single-particle cryo-EM with cryo-ET, he found that Chlamy mitoribosomes are built from 13 rRNA fragments that are "glued" together to maintain a functional complex. Evolution is amazing! Great collab with the Giegé, Drouard, & Hashem Labs!  [Dec 2021]

• Ben gave virtual talks at the McGill Structural Biology Symposium, the ​UK Cilia Network e-Symposium, the NVBMB Fall Meeting, and UMass Amherst MCB Seminar Series. Thanks for hosting, Huy Bui, Pleasantine Mill, Christina Paulino, and Elizabeth Vierling!  [Nov 2021]

• The Secret Lives of Cells:
  Our lab's work was showcased in a Nature news feature about the origins and future directions of cryo-electron tomography. It's a nice perspective piece also featuring our #TeamTomo colleagues in the Kukulski Lab, Villa Lab, Mahamid Lab, and Jensen Lab.  [Oct 2021]

• Published in Nature Methods:
  ​The DeepFinder program uses neural networks to identify macromolecules in cellular cryo-tomograms. A fun collaboration with Kervrann Lab and our colleagues in the Peng Lab at HelmholtzAI. Congratulations Lorenz and Ricardo!  [Oct 2021]

• Ben gave a virtual talk at the Paul Scherrer Institute Laboratory of Nanoscale Biology symposium on Cellular Structural Biology. Thank you for hosting, Takashi Ishikawa and Ohad Medalia!  [Oct 2021]

• Ben gave an EMBO YIP talk and enjoyed the fantastic science and real face-to-face conversations at the Nordic Photosynthesis Congress in Gothenburg, Sweden. Thank you for the amazing hospitality, Alexey Amunts!  [Oct 2021]

• Our whole lab enjoyed relaxing and sharing our science in person with our Helmholtz colleagues at the Pioneer Campus retreat in Herrsching. Congrats Lorzenz for winning a poster prize!  [Sep 2021]

• It's official!  The Cell Architecture Lab will be moving to the Biozentrum at the University of Basel in March 2022. Here's our announcement and a press release from the Biozentrum.   [Sep 2021]

• Ben gave a virtual talk at the student-organized ​Horizons in Molecular Biology Symposium.  [Sep 2021]

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•  #WeFreezeOnTheBeach! 
  Manon, Wojciech, and Ben teamed up with members of the Schwab Lab, Decelle Lab, and Pilhofer Lab for a pilot mission in Environmental Structural Biology. We collected algae from the sea and froze them directly onto grids at the Villefranche-sur-Mer marine station.  [Sep 2021]

• Our lab had an amazing time at the Chlamy Meeting on the Île des Embiez, in southern France. We enjoyed the great company, great weather, and great science! Sven and Florent entertained the crowd with talks about VIPP1 and mitochondrial ribosomes. Ben also gave an EMBO YIP talk. A meeting to remember!  [Sep 2021]

• Ricardo and Florent were both awarded postdoctoral fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Ricardo also became an EMBO non-stipendiary fellow. CONGRATS GUYS!!   ...and nice hats!  [Aug 2021]

• Lorenz was awarded a PhD fellowship from Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds.  CONGRATS LORENZ!!  [Aug 2021]

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• Published in Cell:
  ​The structure of VIPP1, the "photosynthetic ESCRT-III", provides insights how this membrane remodeling protein builds and maintains thylakoid membranes. This study was an extensive collaboration with the Schroda, Schuller, Nickelsen, Rudack, and Sakamoto labs.  And wow!  ...a leafy VIPP1 is featured on the journal cover!!  [Jul 2021]

• Ben gave a virtual talk at the Microscience Microscopy Congress. Thank you for hosting, Sebastian Munck!  [Jul 2021]

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• Ben gave a virtual seminar to a consortium of French plant membrane labs. Thank you for hosting, Yvon Jaillais!  [Jul 2021]

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• Florent was awarded the Dina Surdin Prize from the French Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SFBBM). Congratulations!!  [Jul 2021]

• Science Cover:
  ​What a cool surprise!! Our work was featured on the cover of Science Magazine to promote the upcoming 3DEM Gordon Conference. This image was made by the endlessly talented Dimitry Tegunov and comes from a molecular crowding study we enjoyed working on a few years ago with the Pfeffer Lab and the Holt Lab.   [Jun 2021]

• Ben gave a virtual GBM Lunch Lecture. Thank you for hosting, Stefan Raunser!  [Jun 2021]

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• Ben gave a virtual talk at the annual meeting of the Japanese Society of Photosynthesis. Thank you for the invitation, Toru Hisabori and Ken-ichi Wakabayashi!  [May 2021]

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• Ben gave a virtual talk at the Penn Structural Biology Symposium. Thank you for hosting, Vera Moiseenkova-Bell!  [May 2021]

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• Ben gave a G4W Webinar for the Exeter Living Systems Institute. Thank you for hosting, Bertram Daum!  [May 2021]

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• Florent Waltz has joined our group!  Florent loves exploring mitochondria throughout the tree of life, and particularly in photosynthetic organisms. He is also a collector of exotic ribosomes. We can't wait to see what crazy things he discovers next.  Welcome to the lab!!  [May 2021]

• Published in Nature Plants:
  ​Ben and Wojciech had fun writing a News & Views on chloroplast "greening" and the light-induced step of chlorophyll biosynthesis.  [Apr 2021]

• Published in Nature Plants:
  ​Our collaboration with the Rudack, Schuller, and Nowaczyk labs, revealing the first high-resolution structure of a PSII assembly intermediate. How to build Nature's unique water-splitting machine.  [Apr 2021]

• We were a awarded an HFSP Grant with Roberta Croce and Doran Bennett to explore the adaptation of Chlamydomonas thylakoid membranes to changing light intensities!  [Apr 2021]

• Ben gave a virtual seminar for Michigan State University. Thank you for hosting, Peter Lundquist!  [Feb 2021]

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• Ben gave a virtual seminar for the University of Liverpool. Thank you for hosting, Luning Liu!  [Feb 2021]

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• Wojciech expertly guided us on a molecular tour of native thylakoid membranes at the Monthly Webinar Series on Chloroplasts and Mitochondria (WebCaM).  [Jan 2021]

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• Ben gave a virtual seminar for CNRS-IBMP Strasbourg. Thank you for hosting, Philippe Giegé!  [Jan 2021]

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2020

• Ben and the lab were selected to join the EMBO Young Investigator Program!  [Dec 2020]

• Ben gave a virtual seminar for Washington University in St. Luis. Thank you for hosting, James Fitzpatrick!  [Dec 2020]

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• Published in Nature Plants:
  ​Our collaboration with the Jonikas Lab revealing the the structural interactions between the carbon-fixing enzyme Rubisco and the multivalent linker EPYC1 that drive phase separation of the pyrenoid.   [Nov 2020]

• Manon Demulder has joined our group!  Manon will lead our explorations into the pyrenoid, a phase-separated microcompartment in the algal chloroplast that performs efficient carbon fixation.  Welcome to the team!!  [Nov 2020]

• Ben enjoyed virtually teaching a graduate course on cryo-ET at the Basel Biozentrum.   [Nov 2020]

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• Published in EMBO Journal: 
  ​Our collaboration with the Guichard / Hamel Lab exploring the evolutionary diversity of the centriole's cartwheel and proximal triplet microtubules is on the journal cover!!   [Nov 2020]

• Petr Chlanda virtually visited us for the HPC Webinar Series. He give a jaw-dropping talk on visualizing the stages of SARS-Cov-2 assembly inside cells by cryo-ET.  [Oct 2020]

• Hugo left the crowd speechless with his talk at the UK Cilia Network e-symposium.  [Oct 2020]

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• Ricardo gave electron microscopy lecture for the Paul Scherrer Institute.  [Oct 2020]

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• Ben gave a virtual seminar for Stockholm University. Thank you for hosting, Ville Kaila!  [Oct 2020]

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• CONGRATULATIONS!!
  to Dr. Tilak Kumar Gupta for successfully defending his Ph.D. Thesis!  [Jul 2020]
  
  
• If you are curious about the rainbow basket on his head, check out this preprint on the structure and function of VIPP1.  [Aug 2020]

• Ben gave a virtual seminar for the University of Heidelberg (ZMBH). Thank you for hosting, Stefan Pfeffer!  [Jun 2020]

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• Ricardo was profiled on the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus website.  [May 2020]

• "The Bavarian from Berkeley":  Ben was profiled on the Helmholtz national website.  [May 2020]

• Ricardo Righetto has joined our team!  As our group's computational specialist, Ricardo will anchor our image analysis, while exploring new applications of deep learning to cryo-electron tomography.  Despite the closed border, Ricardo and his wife successfully arrived from Basel, with a nice cruise across the Bodensee. Welcome to Munich!!   [Apr 2020]

• Published in eLife:
  ​A detailed view of the cell's solar panel.  We show how to map photosynthetic complexes into native thylakoid architecture. Congrats Wojciech!  [Apr 2020]

• Congrats Hugo for giving a great talk at the <Interact>2020 Conference!  [Feb 2020]

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• Ben had fun teaching (and learning!) at the the Vienna Cryo-EM Winter School.  [Feb 2020]

• Ben gave a guest lecture at the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry. Thank you for hosting, Patrick Cramer!  [Feb 2020]

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• Published in Science Advances:
  Our collaboration with the Guichard / Hamel Lab revealing the helical structure and molecular composition of an inner scaffold that holds the centriole together and helps it resist physical stresses.​ The inner scaffold is conserved in Paramecium, Chlamydomonas, Naegleria, and Humans!  [Feb 2020]

• Published in Plant, Cell & Environment: Our collaboration with the Schroda Lab characterizing the stress-induced  Chlamydomonas protein VIPP2, which forms rods and binds membranes.​ [Feb 2020]

• Ben gave a talk at the 3D Electron Microscopy of Organelles and Macromolecules workshop in Hong Kong.  Thank you for hosting, Byung-Ho Kang and Liwen Jiang!  [Jan 2020]

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• Published in PNAS:
  ​Proteasomes and Cdc48 cluster together in non-membrane-bound degradation microcompartments that directly contact specialized ribosome-free regions of the ER membrane.  Is it ERAD by phase separation?​  [Jan 2020]

2019

• Ben gave the plenary talk at the Christmas Bioenergetics Meeting in London.  Thank you for hosting, Guy Hanke!  [Dec 2019]

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• ​Our Aquilos cryo-FIB is here.  What a great Christmas present!  #HugTheBox​  [Dec 2019]

• Published in MBoC: Our collaboration with the Avashti lab characterizing actin filaments in the green alga, Chlamydomonas.​  [Oct 2019]

• Ben gave a guest lecture at the Institut Curie.  Thank you for hosting, Daniel Lévy!  [Oct 2019]

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• Ben gave a guest lecture at the MRC-LMB. Thank you for hosting, Andrew Carter!  [Oct 2019]

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• Ben gave an interview to announce that the Cell Architecture Lab will be moving to the Pioneer Campus at Helmholtz Zentrum München in November 2019.  [Jul 2019]