Annual Activities
GRK/ZINF-Retreat
The GRK 2157 and the Research Center for Infectious Diseases (ZINF) meet once a year for a common retreat. The PIs and graduate students of the GRK 2157 attend the presentations given by selected ZINF members and members of the ZINF Scientific Advisory Board. Second and third year graduate students will present their projects in short talks in plenary sessions. In addition, a separate poster session will be organized, where all graduate students present and discuss their projects with the PIs and the scientific advisory board of the GRK 2157. The progress of the GRK 2157 will be discussed among the PIs and the members of the scientific advisory board.
3D Infect-Symposium
This symposium aims to promote scientific discussions among the graduate students. It will be organized annually by the graduate students. It is the responsibility of the graduate students to invite expert guests who could contribute relevant advice and discussion.
Summer School
The GRK will also offer summer schools based on our well established summer school series “Modern Methods in Infection Biology” (speaker since 2012: T. Dandekar). These are open for all graduate students plus selected international top students. The program reflects modern methods and a range of human pathogens presented from the PIs and invited speakers. We plan already further summer schools on subtopics. Finances for this have been secured by the Faculty of Biology as part of the internationalization program.
Graduate Exchange Program
The Graduate Exchange Program aims to provide the graduate students hands on experience in methods or technologies complementary to their field. They are expected to spend two weeks in the laboratory of another PI of the GRK 2157 to get instructions on e.g. methods, infection models or to perform part of their project there. The visiting graduate student will be supervised by the graduate student of the guest laboratory to foster interactions between the GRK 2157 graduate students. In justified cases, graduate students can choose laboratories outside the GRK 2157, e.g. to receive training in special technology useful for their project. An excellent opportunity for training in tissue engineering will be offered by the competence center for artificial tissues and Tissue Engineering for Drug Development (TEDD) located at the Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften in Zürich (Switzerland) . The TEDD network activities have been created to keep all TEDD partners as well as others working in the area of 3D cell culture, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine up to date with current workshops, industrial training programs, other activities, news and events. With Marco Metzger and Maria Steinke as TEDD partners, we will organize specific training programs including with the industrial partners of this network for the graduate students on an individual level. Additionally, the students can visit the academic as well as the commercial partners and be trained in specific technologies.
National and International Scientific Meetings
The graduate students of the GRK 2157 have the opportunity to present their data at national and international scientific meetings. The GRK 2157 will organize one international meeting in the first funding period to invite world class infection and cell biologists to Würzburg and thereby also increase its international visibility.
