The DBM is a scary place. Only some time after we, the students, join it we realize how big it actually is, with its close to 60 research groups focused on 4 Research Clusters at 5 different locations. Numerous seminars and lectures are supposed to help us through this jungle of labs and people, but this is often tough and not easy. That is why there was a need to create a department-wide student's club that facilitates knowledge transfer and communication among folks of our kind. And what better way is there to do scientific communication than going to a beautiful place in Switzerland and present our own data to fellow students.

With a retreat that is held by students, we can experience science in a comfortable way that allows questions, discussions and comments free of potential formal insecurities. Moreover, it is a great opportunity to obtain an insight into less familiar research fields and techniques, which may even be able to help our own project. And in addition, this event will be an excellent platform to form new collaborations in form of knowledge, methodological and technical transfer.

For this reason we organize on a yearly basis a Scientific PhD Retreat to which every PhD student at the DBM is invited to participate.

See you soon!!

The DBM PhD Club

The 8th annual PhD retreat this year will took place at the lake of Schwarzsee in the State Fribourg.
The first day was reserved for our guest speakers representing the four DBM Research Clusters Immunology, Neurobiology, Stem cell/ Regenerative Medicine and Oncology.
We were glad that we could organize the PhD Retreat 2020 that took place from the 8th to the 10th of October 2020!
This year, the retreat took place in Schwarzsee, in the Fribourg pre-alps as previously announced.
This year was be a bit special for the PhD retreat organization due to the corona pandemics:

• In accordance with the university services, we were allowed to hold the PhD retreat if the pandemics status did not worsen until then. We will be able to guarantee social distanciation , masks/hydroalcoholic gel availability, and so on to ensure barrier gestures!

• As the situation became clearer few weeks ago, there is no MoNA registration available for this PhD retreat, we will inform you in the next few weeks how to deal with the learning contract creation to get the due ECTS; the learning contract will be on your responsibility so please make sure to do it!)  

Report:download

The 7th annual PhD retreat this year led us to a beautiful location in Schwarzenburg, BR in the midst of the nature park Gantrisch. The first day was reserved for our guest speakers providing us with insight into their work. This year, we were grateful to have our four guests speak on:

• Henk Stunnenberg (Neijmegen, Netherlands) - Epigenetic regulation of transcription in stem cells and consequences of trascriptional misregulation in celiac disease
• Jim Norman (Glasgow, United Kingdom) – The molecular machinery of integrin transport and their contribution to invasive migration of cancer cells
• Francesca Peri (Zürich, Switzerland) – The mechanisms how microglia identify and remove dysfunctional neurons from the brain
• Francesca Granucci (Milan, Italy) - Dendritic cell maturation and their role in activating and controlling NK cell functions

We thank all the speakers again for taking the journey to meet us and for their openness for discussion.

Your PhD Club

Report

This year's DBM Scientific Retreat took place from Thursday 7^th until Saturday 9^th of June in Einsiedeln, Hotel Allegro (canton Schwyz). 

This was a great opportunity to meet the PhD colleagues from all of the five DBM locations. Also, every participant presented his or her project by either a talk or during one of the poster sessions. 

We had also this year a Mini-Symposium with remarkable speakers from all four Research Clusters:

• Neurobiology: Frank Bradke from the DZNE in Bonn, Germany

• Stem Cell/regen. Medicine: Georgina Ellison from the Centre for Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine at King’s College in London, UK

• Oncology: Daria Gaykalova from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA

• Immunology: Christian Münz from University of Zürich, Switzerland

We had a great time together and we are looking forward to the next year event.

Your PhD Club

In 2017 the 5^th Scientific PhD retreat took place in the in Quarten high above the Lake of Walen from May 18-20. 54 PhD students participated in this year retreat.

Marcel and Simon made very nice pictures

Sabine Winkler wrote a nice report

Your DBM PhD Club

Sandro Nuciforo, Madleine Vollmer, Sabine Winkler, Simon Schwarz, Daria Monogiou Belik, Lukas Enz

In 2016 the 4^th Scientific PhD retreat took place in the Hotel Seeblick in Emmetten high above the Lake of Lucerne from May 26-28. 51 PhD students participated in this year retreat.

Ronny Nienhold made very nice pictures and Sabine Winkler wrote the report.

Your DBM PhD Club

Katharina, Vincent, Ronny, David, Flurina, Madleine, Sabine and Hong Ying Teh

Dear all,
The last DBM PhD Scientific Retreat took place from Thursday-Saturday January 16th-18th 2014 in the Hotel Viktoria in Hasliberg.
 
During these three days PhD students, MD-PhD students and Master students from all the five DBM locations had the possibility to interact with each other and to get a big overview of the different scientific topics investigated within the department. This event was a great opportunity for everyone to actively present their work and promote themselves within the student’s community of the DBM.
The two first days of the retreat was dedicated to science, with selected 15 minutes talk based on an abstract submission. In addition, all other participants presented their project with a poster.
 
Hong Ying Teh made a very nice summary of this retreat.
 
 
Your PhD Club,
 
Anna, Carlos, Fabrizio, Frédéric, Kea, Konstantin, Maren, Vincent