The success story of recent doctoral defenses continues: In April, Eva-Lena Stange has successfully defended her dissertation entitled “The Neonatal Liver as a Tolerogenic T Cell Hub: Mechanisms and Long-term Effects ”. Her studies could demonstrate that the neonatal liver functions as a temporary immunoregulatory niche, promoting the expansion of regulatory T cells early after birth to establish immune tolerance, while still permitting controlled activation of other T cells in response to microbial cues. As a consequence, antiviral immune responses in the liver are dampened in early life, but this early tolerogenic program shapes immune balance long term and reduces susceptibility to inflammatory liver disease in adulthood. Eva conducted her research at the Institute of Medical Microbiology under the supervision of Dr. Natalia Torow – a former Rising Star of the CRC1382 programme who is now a group leader at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig. We warmly celebrate her achievement and wish her continued success in her scientific career.