News

SECRET project goals shared within school internship at the University of Stuttgart

Early Stage Researchers Hazal Yilmaz and Elena Gutiérrez Galindo from the University of Stuttgart contributed to the supervision of two school pupils eager to learn about life as a cell biologist during a 3-day internship in the Hausser group, at the Institute for Cell Biology and Immunology.

The group of Prof. Angelika Hausser investigates how membranes of the secretory pathway are regulated by signal transduction pathways, employing an interdisciplinary approach combining 2D and 3D cell culture including primary cells from mice and humans, biochemistry, advanced microscopic techniques e.g. TIRF, FRET, and FRAP, image-based high-throughput screening, and in vivo mouse models.

In addition to learning about current projects, such as the two individual research projects funded by SECRET-ITN, Lara and Julia learned the basics in working at the clean bench, doing cell culture and immunofluorescence staining, as well as fluorescence microscopy, to complete their first practical experiment – hopefully one of many to come!

One of the main goals of MSCA International Training Networks is to raise awareness towards current global issues that research funded by the European Commission is tackling. Results arising from these projects are not only disseminated within the scientific community, but also spread to the broad public, and will hopefully spark the interest of promising young students, such as Lara and Julia, fostering a new generation of successful scientists!

SECRET ITN is thankful to Lara and Julia for their inquisitive nature, willingness to learn, and excitement, as well as Elena, Hazal, Angelika Hausser and Gisela Link for their contribution to the learning experience!

The second talk of the “Careers in the Life Sciences” seminar series – Dr. Till Wenger – Boehringer Ingelheim (May 23rd, 2022)

To continue our “Careers in the Life Sciences” Digital Seminar Series, Dr. Till Wenger, Head of Development Core Technologies at the Viral Therapeutics Center, Biologics Development, Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) gave an insightful presentation of his background and career path, the skills and personal development involved along such a career path, as well as the opportunities in a large pharmaceutical company such as BI.

We are very thankful for all the work our speaker has put into our event, and his wonderful presentation. We are also happy that the audience showed great interest in the event and contributed to a very lively discussion. Training events such as this one aim to guide our ESRs into their next career step with an open view of all the opportunities that might arise in their early careers.

Kicking off our own SECRET-ITN “Careers in the Life Sciences” seminar series! (May 18th, 2022)

We are excited to announce the launch of our “Careers in the Life Sciences” Digital Seminar Series, aiming to prepare our ESRs for their next career steps by giving them the opportunity to sample the broad spectrum of career choices in the life sciences.

We have managed to bring together a powerful group of speakers with doctoral degrees in the life sciences, who have carved successful, interesting and unique career paths for themselves. Their talks aim to present not only the speaker‘s career path and present job description, but also the critical decision points encountered down the road, advice based on their personal experience, and personal and professional traits that ensured their success and made them a good fit to the chosen career.

Our first session was hosted and organised by our beneficiary from the Medical University of Innsbruck, Prof. Hesso Farhan. We are very thankful to him and to the amazing first speaker, Dr. Nonia Pariente, currently Editor-in-Chief at PLOS Biology. She has opened the “black box” of alternative careers for scientists, by showing us insights into the life of an editor in scientific publishing. Many thanks to her and our wonderful audience!

Award ceremony of the CCC-Initiative Cancer Research Grant & CCC-Best Paper (May 4th, 2022)

Assoc. Prof Helmut Dolznig from the Institute of Medical Genetics, Medical University of Vienna, presented the work of his lab within the award ceremony of the Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC), as part of receiving a CCC grant to promote research towards the development of complex in vitro 3D tumour models of colorectal cancer. The award ceremony was followed by a press release on the CCC website describing the project in more detail. The research will focus on development of state of the art three-dimensional tumour cell organoid – stroma co-culture models to investigate the impact of the tumour crosstalk to the microenvironment and its implications for malignancy. The poster titled “Innovatives humanes Tumormodell zur Analyse der Chemotherapie Resistenzentwicklung bei Dickdarmkrebs” was designed for a German-speaking lay audience, mentioning the funding of the SECRET-ITN program.

Participation in the Research Afternoon “Hot Trends in Science” (April 21st, 2022)

As part of the Research Afternoon Hot Trends in Science organised by biomed austria in cooperation with Szabo-Scandic Handels gmbH, Assoc. Prof Helmut Dolznig from the Institute of Medical Genetics, Medical University of Vienna, gave a talk titled “Organotypic organoid cultures as novel preclinical models to test drug response and to study tumor stroma interaction”. The talk featured work funded by SECRET-ITN.