– It was so nice to see all the engagement among the participants! For me it was important to create an event that they will benefit from, says Maria Pierantoni, researcher at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Lund University.
Daniel Sarabi, postdoctoral researcher at LINXS, agrees:
– It was great to see people in the room asking questions and being curious about the methods and approaches. It shows the relevance of the presentations we included.
Life Science a broad topic
As life science is a broad topic, the group also aimed to include talks that could spark interest across the board. One such talk was by Hector Dejea, from ESRF, France, which focused on bone tissue and covered length scales that not many of the participants work with.
– This presentation caught my attention, as well as many of the participants. We want to encourage learning, and challenge people to look beyond their own research interests, says Maria Pierantoni.
Daniel Sarabi reflects that the career session, which they included for the first time last year, sparked a lot of discussion.
– As a postdoc you need to focus on your next career move as the position is usually only two years. Being able to highlight different options and journeys connected to X-rays and neutrons is something we see as an important feature of the Young Researchers’ Initiative.
Swati Aggarwal, scientist at ESS, reflects that:
– Life science YRI events are always designed on a broader theme with an aim of covering integrated structural biology to molecular dynamics. This year, we had special focus on AI driven approaches in structural biology to spark a curiosity amongst the participants, with a very interactive session. All in all, LINXS is always a great platform for researchers from diverse scientific backgrounds to mingle and come up with new ideas and we are thankful to be given an opportunity to organise such events.
The group already has plans for how to develop the event next year. One idea is to make more time for the poster session and include an informal introduction pitch to enable people to get to know each other at the very start of the event.
The YRI was very appreciated by the participants
Jinming Wu, postdoctoral researcher in Molecular Biophysics in LINXS Director Trevor Forsyth’ research group, reflects that these types of events are good for networking, and for meeting other researchers.
– It’s always refreshing to meet peers from other research fields—it doesn’t happen often, but it’s incredibly valuable.
For Ferdinand Fandrei, postdoctoral researcher at Physical Chemistry, the event was the very first activity he attended in Sweden. He recently moved from Berlin, Germany, to do a post doctorate focusing on lipid phase operations in the AMBER programme which is coordinated by LINXS.
He was impressed by the programme and says that events like these are a great chance to start collaborating at an early stage of your career.
– Meeting people who work with similar techniques is important. Especially X-rays and neutron methods as they are not as common still.
