EMBL E-STAR Activities
Education
It is a huge challenge to explain state-of-the art molecular biology to high school teachers, students and the public. Young scientists in particular have great ideas on how to communicate science in innovative ways to non-scientists.
Sparked off by the Marie Curie Action Early-Stage-Training (EST) project, a successful partnership between the European Learning Laboratory for the Life Sciences (ELLS), EMBL's facility dedicated to science education, and the 18 E-STAR predocs has evolved. The students collaborated with ELLS on the design of education modules for molecular biology and participated in 13 events with teachers and students from 24 different countries. These events opened the doors to modern research for more than 260 high-school teachers and 160 students.
EMBL PhD Students' Symposia
Every year the EMBL PhD students organise a symposium
This year the EMBL PhD Students' Symposium is taking place in Heidelberg from the 3rd to the 6th of December. The symposium, titled "Biology At Work: A Journey Through The Applied Life Sciences", is being organised by a committee which includes E-STAR fellows Silvia Santos and Lukas Neidhart. The meeting aims to give an overview of the applications of biology in areas such as biomedicine, biotechnology, environmental sciences, neuroscience and evolution. link
For the first year the EMBL PhD students at the Monterotondo outstation, in collaboration with the PhD students of the University of Rome, are organising a minisymposium entitled "Animal Models: Tips and Tricks from Nature". EMBL E-STAR Fellow Sylvia Badurek is a member of the organising committee for this event which aims to give an outline of how different species of animals can be involved in various types of basic and applied research. link.
The 8th International EMBL PhD Student Symposium, 'Biology of Disease: A Molecular Battlefield' was a big success.The eighth in the series organised by EMBL PhD students for other students, it attracted 126 attendees from over 20 countries. In addition,18 prominent scientists came to share their insights on the biology of a wide spectrum of diseases, ranging from food related diseases to mental disorders. link
Other Activities
For the first time in EMBL a scientific writing course was organised specifically for PhD students. The course was organised by the E-STAR administrator Britta Schläger (email) in collaboration with Matthias Haury of the EMBL International Center for Advanced Training (EICAT) and Julia Willingale-Theune of the European Learning Laboratory for the Life Sciences (ELLS). Pictured below are the organisers and participants. You can read more about the course in the April edition of the EMBL newsletter here.
After only two events, the EMBL predoc retreat is already an established and important part of the PhD programme. It provides a much needed forum for communication between the EMBL predocs, to discuss the scientific challenges being addressed in their thesis work and also the wider issues affecting predoc life, all in a relaxed and informal environment away from the lab (and group leaders!). We're already looking forward to the next one....link