Graduate Students’ Day 2011

The Helmholtz Graduate School Environmental Health, HELENA for short, has just celebrated its first anniversary. This was a reason to look back and celebrate – and a reason to look forward into the future. Both perspectives received equal attention at Graduate Students’ Day on November 9, 2011.

Much has been achieved for the graduate students: Christian Langebartels, head of Program Planning and Management, gave an overview of the first 12 months of the Graduate School. More and more graduate students are taking advantage of the benefits of this well-structured program. In October HELENA enrolled its 200th graduate student: Petra Nathan of the Comprehensive Pneumology Center (CPC) in Grosshadern.

Structured training, systematic supervision

Within the scope of HELENA, the Center has responded to feedback and has implemented suggestions for improvements given by the graduate students, beginning with the systematic supervision by a Thesis Committee and including suggestions for the scientific content in theory and practice. “The lecture series ‘Environmental Health’ conveys important content in HELENA’s main thematic areas,” Christian Langebartels said. “For 2012 we are also putting more emphasis on methods courses.” HELENA graduate students can now attend seminars and journal clubs offered in nearly all institutes at Helmholtz Zentrum München. HELENA also promotes internationalization: An amount of up to EUR 1500 is available per person for visits in other labs or as expenses for guests. Courses from the area ‘transferable skills’ promote the competencies of young scientists outside of the lab. HELENA also offers courses on career planning, working in industry or entrepreneurship. In this area, a highlight this year was the management course given by the CEO of Helmholtz Zentrum München, Professor Günther Wess.

Focus on immunology

The importance of broad-based methodological knowledge is illustrated by the scientific career of Graham Pockley, Professor of Immune Biology at the University of Sheffield, UK. As guest speaker he told how his career developed with regard to his research on immune regulatory mechanisms, which was the focus of his research activity for more than 25 years. Flow cytometry became one of his most important research tools. Pockley‘s findings are the basis for research carried out today at universities and for the company he founded, Chromocyte.

Distinguished dissertations

The winners of the Graduate Students Award have already mastered the first hurdle of their career with flying colors. Ana Griciuc received one of the dissertation prizes awarded by the Association of Friends and Supporters (VdFF) with the support of Münchner Bank. She worked in the research group of Marius Ueffing (Research Unit for Protein Science) and wrote her dissertation on the ‘Molecular and functional analysis of the ERAD effector VCP in cellular and Drosophila models for retinitis pigmentosa’. Martin Heidemann from Dirk Eick‘s lab (Research Unit Molecular Epigenetics) was honored for his dissertation ‘Study of the modification pattern of the carboxy terminal domain of DNA-dependent RNA polymerase II and the identification of CTD serine-7 kinase’. And Veronica von Saint Paul from Anton Schäffner’s research group (Institute of Biochemical Plant Pathology) received a prize for her dissertation ‘Stress inducible glycosyltransferases in Arabidopsis thaliana and their impact on plant metabolism and defense mechanisms’. As president of the VdFF, Martin Göttlicher moderated the award ceremony for the best dissertations. In a discussion with the three prizewinners, he asked them about their positive and less positive moments during their graduate work. In summary, all agreed that it was important to have several scientific sub-projects that were closely related but still independent enough to overcome ‘dry spells’ in research.

New Graduate Student Representatives Elected

All of the attendees of Graduate Students’ Day will certainly take this advice to heart. The HELENA graduate student representatives also provide assistance and support in cases when advice is needed. Next on the agenda was the election of the new representatives for the coming year. Monika Beer thanked Barbara Berschneider, Jens Callegari, Anne Draeseke and Franziska Uhl for their excellent cooperation during their term of office. Their successors in the next 12 months will be Gisselle Argueta Baires and Christina Dargel as graduate student representatives and Stephan Hofmann and Karen Bayer as deputy representatives.

Science Slam – Science Goes Pop

A maximum of ten minutes for a coherent, easy-to-understand research presentation – mission impossible? Not really, as was evident in the first ‘Science Slam’ at the Center: Whether the topic was ‘The Proteasome and the Cellular Effect of Tobacco Smoke’ (Silke Meiners with her research group from the Comprehensive Pneumology Center), ‘Mathematical Models of Self-organization Processes of Ants’ (Fabian Theis, research group 'Computational Modeling in Biology' at the Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology) or ‘Machines in Technology, Plants and Humans’ (Gisselle Argueta Baires, Institute of Biochemical Plant Pathology), all talks were presented with great enthusiasm. And the same enthusiastic mood continued with a Mexican evening: despite the fog and chill, Graduate Students’ Day ended in a festive atmosphere.