Jahresbericht 2017 für
LS2 Life Sciences Switzerland: Life Sciences Switzerland
Präsident/Präsidentin: Prof. Dr. Urs Greber
Von: Carolin von Schoultz, carolin.vonschoultz@ls2.ch
Zusammenfassung
- LS2 Annual Meeting 2017, 12-13 February 2017, University of Zurich, Irchel Campus
- 550 participants
- The LS2 Annual Meeting is mostly financed by the participants, sponsors and exhibitors. However, some key activities have been made possible with the support of SCNAT, including the support to BSc/MSc students to attend the meeting, the travel grants for the three Swiss Bioolympics medal winners, and support for the printing costs of a scientific quiz in collaboration with Simplyscience.ch. All these SCNAT-funded activities have been very well received and were very much appreciated.
- Four LS2 Satellite meetings accompanying the “Frontiers in Medicinal Chemistry” conference (Bern), the Latsis symposium on transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (Zurich), the EMBO workshop on Topoisomerases (Les Diablerets) & the Louis-Jeantet Symposium (Geneva)
- Annual meetings of the Proteomics and Physiological LS2 sections with increasing participant numbers
- The launch of two new sections: Cardiovascular Biology & Systems Biology
Tagungen / Kurse
- LS2 Annual Meeting 2017, 12-13 February 2017, University of Zurich, Irchel Campus
- 4 plenary lectures
- Fiona Doetsch/UNIBAS
- Bernd Bukau/University of Heidelberg
- Denis Duboule/UNIGE&EPFL
- Andrew Macpherson/UNIBE
- 11 scientific symposia of our sections, partners, and affiliated societies with 28 (inter)national speakers & many talks from young scientists
- 36 exhibitors
- Career development sessionsduring the LS2 Annual Meeting 2017:
- Tomorrow’s PIs: The Future of Swiss Research, a competition just for Postdocs, showcasing the best 6 of 72 applicants
- Non-academic and academic career roundtable discussions with 24 speakers
- Poster session with 153 posters
- Award sessions of the “PI of Tomorrow”, Friedrich-Miescher-Award to Petr Cejka (Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Bellinzona), the 2nd Lelio Orci Award to Markus Aebi (ETH Zurich), and poster prizes
- LS2 satellite meetings preceding or following the conferences below:
(Priority was given to PhD students, places were given to MSc and Postdocs upon availability)
- ‘Frontiers in Medicinal Chemistry’, 12-15 February 2017, Bern
- Satellite 12 February 2017, 15 participants, including senior scientists from the main conference all presenting their projects and Jürg Gertsch/UNIBE and Alexander Adibekian/UNIGE as chairmen
- “Do’s and don’ts in publishing” session with Dr. David Peralta, Managing Editor, ChemMedChem
- Q&A session about "Career paths in Academia" with Alexander Adibekian (UNIGE), Jürg Gertsch (UNIBE), and the young academics
- Latsis symposium, ETH Zurich, 28.-30. August 2017 (https://www.latsis2017.ethz.ch)
- Satellite on 28 Aug 2017, 13:00-17:00
- “Meet the experts”:Questions & Answers on transgenerational epigenetic inheritance for 30 participants
- Experts: Eva Jablonska Tel Aviv University (IL), Isabelle Mansuy, (UZH & ETH Zurich), Michael Skinner (Washington State University, US)
- EMBO workshop on DNA topoisomerases & DNA topology, 17-21 September 2017, Eurotel Les Diablerets
- Satellite Meeting: 16-17 September (https://meetings.ls2.ch/topo2017)
- 22 participants, chairwoman: Anna Bizard (University of Copenhagen, DK)
- presentation of selected student projects
- Q&A session on Scientific Careers with early-arriving plenary speakers of the main conference
- Symposium Louis-Jeantet, 10 October 2017, CMU Geneva
- Satellite Meeting 10./11. October 2017 https://meetings.ls2.ch/jeantet-2017
- 19 participants
- Chairman: Ioannis Xenarios (SIB, UNIL, UNIGE)
- Participating plenary speakers: Hans Clevers (Hubrecht Institute, Utrecht, NL), Steve West (The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK)
- Co-organized meeting:International Dictyostelium Conference 2017, 20-24.8., Chavannes de Bogis, organized by Thierry Soldati (past president LS2/UNIGE), Pierre Cosson (UNIGE), their groups, and LS2.
Internationale Aktivitäten
B) Simone Camargo (UZH), delegate LS2 section Physiology, FEPS delegate meeting, 13-15 September 2017, Vienna
Didier Picard (UNIGE), delegate LS2 section MCB, the 57th FEBS Council Meeting Jerusalem, 14-15 September 2017
Nachwuchsförderung
- LS2 PhD travel grants to visit conferences abroad. Total grants given in 2017: 23 (25’078 CHF), supported by SCNAT, https://www.ls2.ch/funding/travel-grant-reports
- 20 travel grants for Bachelor and Master students to attend the LS2 Annual Meeting (50 CHF each), supported by SCNAT
- Four free satellite symposia for PhD and master students (see above), incl. accommodation and travels, supported by SCNAT
- Career development symposia at the LS2 Annual Meeting 2017 (see above)
- LS2 sponsored events (https://www.ls2.ch/events/sponsored-events):
- 20 April 2017, SSPT Spring Meeting 2017, Auditorium Langhans, Inselspital Bern
- Participation at the Life Sciences Career Days in Lausanne and Zurich
Forschungsunterstützende Informations- und Koordinationsaufgaben
- Mailchimp-based bimonthly newsletter with all relevant infos of LS2 and general life sciences events and activities, news letter archive at: https://www.ls2.ch/more/ls2-newsletter-archive
- Supporting calendar on website: https://www.ls2.ch/events/other-events and https://www.ls2.ch/events/calendar with a focus on scientific conferences in Switzerland
- Member database, open to all members, allows to enter areas of expertise and fosters exchange
- Active social media channels and groups on Facebook, twitter, and LinkedIn
- Science Policy news ticker from ScienceGeist onto the ls2.ch homepage (http://www.sciencegeist.com) ScienceGeist is a curated collection of over 3500 constantly updated science policy issues, and supported by SNSF (subscription possible for everybody). As a result, our members and the public have constant access to the latest Science Policy issues via our homepage.
- Implementation of online payment via Stripe on our websites for the Annual Meeting (annual-meeting.ls2.ch) and all our other meetings (meetings.ls2.ch)
- Launch of two new sections:
- Cardiovascular Biology, in close cooperation with the Swiss Cardiology Society: https://www.ls2.ch/sections/cardiovascular-biology
- Systems Biology, in close cooperation with SystemsX.ch, in order to increase the chance to render the scientific successes and outreach efforts of the SystemsX.ch initiative more perennial in Switzerland, especially once the initiative will end by the end of 2018
Dialog mit der Gesellschaft
3. February 2017, Irchel Campus, University of Zurich
"Misuse of biological research: Do we need to be concerned?"
As part of the LS2 Annual Meeting 2017, the SCNAT Forum for Genetic Research organised a session, followed by a roundtable discussion about: "Misuse of biological research: Do we need to be concerned?"
The Forum for Genetic Research invited participants of the LS2 Annual Meeting as well as other interested persons to explore this question. Cédric Invernizzi, biosecurity and bioweapons expert of the Spiez Laboratory, explained in his input talk why there have been increasing security-related concerns about life science research and what measures authorities but also scientists have implemented so far. An interdisciplinary panel of young scientists then discussed about their understanding of ethical research, the importance of open communication and the unpredictability of biological research. Around 30 participants took part followed and joined in on a lively and entertaining discussion.
The event report on this session and the resulting film can be found here : goo.gl/Cz7qkM