Horizons – a success story continues - MSc/PhD/MD

Horizons – a success story continues - MSc/PhD/MD

Horizons – a success story continues
The 5th annual Horizons in molecular
biology meeting, a scientific symposium
organized by students for students, took
place from 10th to 13th of September 2008
in the physics building on the north
campus of the Georg-August-University
Göttingen. The symposium was once again
a gathering place for interested students
and renowned scientists from all over the
world. They followed the invitation of PhD
students from the MSc/PhD Molecular
Biology Program - International Max Planck
Research School to come to Göttingen.
This year’s keynote speakers included Tom
Kirchhausen, who solved the first X-ray
crystal structure of clathrin, Peter Wright
from the Scripps Research Institute in
California, Wolf Reik, who investigates the
regulation of imprinted genes, and Marino Interesting lectures at the Horizons student symposium
Zerial, winner of the Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz Prize 2006.
mingle with the invited speakers, network Discussing my results with the speakers,
As every year, the symposium covered a little and simply become inspired. In but also fellow PhD students, allowed me
topics from the fields of cell biology, neuro- addition, the student talks and the poster to get direct feedback to my research and
science, structural biology and develop- session allowed PhD students to present even revealed possible collaboration with
mental biology. The special session at this and discuss their own work. “Horizons other labs.“
year’s Horizons was computational biology was a good start to overcome my fear of
Altogether, the symposium was well
and included Cédric Notredame, co- giving talks at big conferences”, says Bijan accepted by the students. Christiane
inventor of the multiple sequence align- Boldajipour, PhD student in the Molecular Menzfeld, PhD student from Göttingen,
ment tool T-Coffee. The “Horizons” was Biology program who won the prize for was one of the participants. She pointed
preceded by a career fair
out that the “sympowhich aimed at providsium offered the possiing interested students
bility to meet PhD
with information constudents with related
cerning career planning.
projects in an informal
This included company
atmosphere conducive
presentations, a live interfor networking and exview with recruiters from
changing ideas.” She
Roche, workshops and a
also appreciated the fact
“behind the scenes look
that students could meet
at careers in scientific
successful
scientists
editing” by Dr. Emilie
in an informal atmoMarcus, editor at Cell.
sphere.
As in the year before,
Next year’s special
the second career fair
session will be particuwas also very popular
larly interesting for all
The poster session offered the possibility to discuss research
among the students.
those coming from a
the best student talk at the Horizons 2008. medically-related field who want to know
A convincing concept
Two weeks after Horizons he gave a similar more about interfaces between fundamental
No question – the concept of Horizons talk for an expert audience and felt that research and practical applications since
was again convincing. The organizers are his talk at the student symposium was a the focus will be on medical biology.
PhD students themselves and they know good preparation. Positive feedback also
The success story will continue with the
what a symposium should be like for came from Christoph Biesemann, mem- 6th Horizons in Molecular Biology which
students to benefit most. Not only did the par- ber of the Horizons organizing team and will take place from 9th to 12th of September
ticipants hear up-to-date research present- winner of the poster prize, who said: „The 2009 – a date you should remember!
ations, they also had the opportunity to poster presentation was very rewarding.
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Horizons – eine Erfolgsgeschichte geht weiter
Dieses Jahr fand zum 5. Mal das
Studentensymposium „Horizons in Molecular Biology“ statt. Vom 10. bis zum 13.
September 2008 hatten Doktoranden des
Master-/ Promotionsstudiengangs Molecular Biology Program - International Max
Planck Research School nach Göttingen
eingeladen, und viele international
renommierte Wissenschaftler waren dieser Einladung gefolgt. Wie auch in den
letzten Jahren gab es Vorträge aus den
Themenbereichen Neurowissenschaften,
Zellbiologie, Entwicklungsbiologie und
Strukturbiologie. Das Sonderthema war
dieses Jahr Computational Biology.
Die Resonanz seitens der Studenten
war wieder überaus positiv. Zum einen
gab es spannende Vorträge, zum anderen
schätzten viele die Möglichkeit, im Rahmen des Studentensymposiums Kontakte
zu knüpfen und erstklassige Wissenschaftler in informeller Atmosphäre zu erleben.
Der Preis für das beste Poster ging an
Christoph Biesemann, die beste Studentenpräsentation gab Bijan Boldajipour. Beide
sind Doktoranden des Molecular BiologyProgramms.
Wie bereits 2007 gab es auch dieses
Jahr eine Karrieremesse (“Career fair“),
die in Verbindung mit „Horizons“ stattfand. Workshops, Firmenpräsentationen,
ein Live-Interview sowie Einblicke in die
Arbeit eines Editors bei Cell von Dr. Emilie
Marcus haben viele Studenten angezogen.
Nach so viel positivem Feedback wird das
„Horizons“ natürlich auch nächstes Jahr
wieder stattfinden und zwar vom 9. bis
zum 12. September 2009 – ein Datum,
das man sich vormerken sollte!
Birgit Manno
Lope Flórez Weidinger (left) and Achim Werner (right) – two members of the motivated Horizons
organization team.
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