On 8th June 2012, the already 5th PhD conference took place successfully at the IMG. In four thematically divided sessions our students (as well as external students and invited foreign guests) shared again their findings and experience with methods they are using in their labs. This year key-note lecture was presented by Professor Sebastian Jessberger (ETH Zurich) on the topic of molecular control of adult neurogenesis. As previously, the audience had a chance to vote for the best presentations, and three best presenters got financial allowance or/and other valuable awards from the sponsors. And as a nice tradition, an after party was organized at which all participants could share their scientific and non-scientific experiences.
“What will be the next step in your PhD studies…?”
On 3rd June, the already 4th PhD conference took place successfully. In four thematically divided sessions students shared again their findings and experience with methods they are using in their labs.
For key-note lecture we invited a host PhD from the EMBL in Heidelberg – Heather Marlow, who gave us a talk about the evolution of animal body plans with regard to nervous system centralization.
In the career development section Radka Kolenovská, MSc (Clinical Operations Coordinator for Orion Clinical Services) shared her experience and career opportunities in the field of clinical medicine.
As previously, the audience had a chance to vote for the best presentations, and three best presenters got financial allowance or/and other valuable awards from the sponsors.
And as a nice tradition, an after party was organized at which all participants could share their scientific and non-scientific experiences.
We organized the second PhD conference with big enthusiasm in June 2009 (after the success with the first one). In four thematically divided sessions students shared again their findings and experience with methods they are using in their labs. This year we made several changes that only contributed to higher quality of this meeting. We invited a host PhD from abroad and most importantly we implemented Career Development lecture, which should help us to answer the question: “What everything can I do after my PhD?”.
The conference started with the news in immunology and we could hear about myeloid cells and their life and a novel adaptor protein found in these cells. The following presentations dedicated to model organisms offered insights into environmental microbiology and eye evolution and development. Moreover, we were introduced to conditional knock-out mouse generation and baculovirus-derived bac-to-bac expression system. At the end we heard about approaches enabling analysis of composition of macromolecular complexes in vitro and in vivo.
The keynote lecture was given by a diploma student Vladimir Soukup from the Department of Zoology at the Charles University in Prague. As he is the first author of the Nature paper dealing with the origin of vertebrate teeth from the evo-devo perspective, we were excited to listen to his successful story.
The Career Development lecture was given by Marek Minarik, head manager of the life science company Genomac International, Ltd. He spoke about his PhD and postdoc life and how he started his business career.
Also this year all conference participants could vote for the best presentations and the three best speakers were awarded.
PhD Afterparty was not missing. This time we could enjoy unbelievable specialties prepared by a professional cook. So, beside leading thoughtful discussions on science, we could also share our own cooking (in lab or kitchen) findings and let us enthuse over this great gastronomic experience.
The first PhD conference was a real challenge. A year ago there was the first meeting of the students, where the idea of PhD conference and other student activities were discussed. It was of big importance to assess the strategy to assure the financial and technical support and arrange the scientific program as well as the refreshment throughout the whole day of the PhD conference. Thanks to many students willing to help, we managed to prepare an excellent meeting.
The conference was opened by prof. Václav Hořejší, the director of IMG, and continued with 12 presentations divided into four sections. The speakers covered broad range of methods used in their labs. The students were informed about the approaches dealing with genomics and gene expression, characterization of specific model organisms and imaging techniques in microscopy.
The very first keynote speaker at our conference was prof. Jiří Bartek, a well-known czech scientist working on the cell cycle and DNA damage in Denmark.
The scientific section was closed by the selection of two best presentations, which were announced at the following Afterparty. As the best contributions were picked lectures about the detection of small RNA molecules with in situ hybridization and about bacterial artificial chromosomes as a big advantage for studying gene expression. Other successful topics covered the CHIP on Chip assay and confocal and TIRF microscopy.
The Afterparty was opened with the photo exhibition: Secrets of Peruvian Andes, arranged by students, who set out on the expedition tour to these spectacular mountains of South America during this summer.
The PhD conference was closed by free entertainment with refreshment, where the students discussed individual lectures, the lab life, etc. and had lot of fun.
