At our Doc's Day on the 22nd of May we met at the campus in Lübeck. Doctoral researchers as well as associated doctoral researchers from Kiel and Lübeck participated. The aim of this meeting was a free exchange between the PhD students, helping each other to solve problems and getting to know each other and the projects better. In the morning we began with the finalization of the organization of the upcoming RTG international Symposium in Kiel. Final questions were answered and final tasks were distributed. After a short coffee break every participant gave a 10 minutes presentation about their new findings, problems or questions concerning their research project. After every talk the whole group discussed the issues addressed by the speaker. It was a stimulating and professional working atmosphere and everybody took some good ideas back home. After lunch the presentations with the following discussions continued. In the evening the group met again at the "BarCelona" in Lübeck for a "projects speed dating" and we had a dinner together while discussing about our projects and our future plans.
We are very grateful to the RTG for supporting us, allowing us to organizing and make real this Doc's Day which was indeed very beneficial for each and every one of us.
In our 13th Internal meeting we had the opportunity to meet again with our colleagues and Principal Investigators and also to listen to a talk of Prof. Dr. Eric Metzen, who is working at the Institute of Physiology at the University of Duisburg Essen. His main research regards hypoxia and hypoxic conditions in the gut, which is of great interest for the most of PhD projects in our RTG1743, since hypoxia has already been proposed to have an impact on the gut microbiome, a fact that may have a further effect on the development of inflammatory conditions. Prof. Metzen gave a very interesting talk on his reaseach projects and he was delightful to answer to all of the questions and discuss with us potential solutions and future research ideas in the field of hypoxia as an environmental factor.
Moreover, we had the opportunity to meet the new associated doctoral researchers from Kiel, who gave a 10 min talk about their personal background and their RTG project. Later on, we had our finalized discussion concerning the organization details of the upcoming RTG Symposium in Kiel and everything was organized well with a great collaborative atmosphere among all of us doctoral researches.
In the afternoon, we visited the company Euroimmun in Lübeck (Seekamp 31, 23560 Lübeck). The researchers who are working at Euroimmun explained to us not only the purpose and structure of the company, but also presented examples of the projects that the company is working on and a project manager talked about her manifold tasks.
This visit, like the previous company visits, was very helpful for the PhD students especially for those who still need some time to decide whether they would like to stay in academia or move to the industry field after the completion of their doctorate.
Overall, this internal meeting was full with fruitful discussions, shared knowledge and ideas, as well as suggestions for the doctoral researcher's future, a fact that makes RTG1743 very much appreciated and being grateful to.