Sarah King

Staff User

Festive Collaborations at TE2 in Graz

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In December 2019 our full cohort of 15 synBIOcarb ESRs enjoyed a rewarding week in Graz during the festive season at our second Training Event. The week was a great success thanks to some fantastic organisation by our excellent hosts, the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology.

This meeting coincided with a visit from our EC Project Officer for his Mid-Term Check. It provided a great opportunity for our ESRs to present themselves as well as to update supervisors on the progress of their projects and discuss future collaborations with synBIOcarb partners.

Scientific training included a one day project exercise working in teams of 2-3 developing designs to target sick cells and deliver a drug to heal or kill them.

There was also time to enjoy rooftop lunches together and a trip to the Christmas Markets in Graz Old Town!

2019 European Researcher Night

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Two of our synBIOcarb ESRs, Juvissan Ariza and Paras Kundalia, based in the Institute of Chemistry at the Slovak academy of Sciences participated in the H2020 MSCA European Researcher Night (NIGHT) in Bratislava on 27th September 2019.

They explained the basics of the world of sugars to children and their families such as where they are found in nature, why they play an important part in daily life and their role in cancer. The NIGHT gave then opportunity to demonstrate biochemistry experiments to a wide audience and to improve their dissemination skills communicating their science to a public audience.

The event included some exceptional talks, such as the ‘Experience of Space Exploration’ from former astronaut Mary Ellen Weber and ‘The future of Artificial Intelligence’ from teenage honorary IBM consultant Tanmay Bakshi who is a teenage honorary IBM consultant. Listening to these talks not only inspired them to pursue high impact research but also encouraged them to be involved in future NIGHTS.

SynBIOcarb First Training Event – UK

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Our newly recruited synBIOcarb ESRs and their supervisors met for the first time together for a four day training event hosted by the University of Leeds. Two of our synBIOcarb project partners, Glycoselect and the University of Orleans, were also able to participate.

The trip began with a day out in North Yorkshire, taking in the delights of Brimham Rocks, Betty’s Tearoom and the Bolton Abbey Estate. All in all a fantastic start for the ESRs to get to know each other!

During the formal sessions our ESRs experienced some exceptional training including how to present to large audiences from performance coach Jane Oakshott MBE, how to communicate your science from Artesc, how to manage research and research ethics from Alastair Hay OBE. They were able to spend time thinking about their personal development as a first step towards preparing their career development plans and we were very delighted to have Professor Birte Svensson from the Technical University of Denmark join as an external mentor. She shared her expertise with our young researchers and gave some valuable starting guidance during an informal group discussion session.

  • Birte Svensson with synbiocarb ESRs following their mentoring session

After such a successful start to the synBIOcarb training programme our researchers are beginning to drive their project work forward and everyone is now looking forward to the next training event hosted by the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology where they will receive more in depth science training and guidance on scientific writing techniques.