Workshop 2 in Frankfurt
In the last week of November, the TargetRNA consortium members met for their second workshop in Frankfurt. It was filled with exciting research talks, scientific discussions, great energy for collaboration, and social activities that brought joy and relaxation for the group.
By: Gideon Holzmann, Spandan Saha and Elsa Blomskog
Published: (Updated: )
First day
The workshop was kicked off with an inspiring talk by guest lecturer Prof Anna Hirsch from the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland. Anna gave a thorough introduction to the field of antibiotic development and presented fascinating results from her previous and current research. The talk gave rise to engaging discussions about the opportunities and challenges we are facing regarding antibiotic resistance and the roadmap towards new antibiotics.
The evening offered a quiz night at the cozy fireplace bar, which was organized by some of the PhD students and which engaged PhDs as well as PIs.
Midterm day
The second day of the workshop was dedicated to the visit of the responsible REA officer Apostolos Paralikas. He recalled the organizational framework behind TargetRNA and offered a session exclusively to PhD students to discuss experiences and conditions during the PhD journey. All students also presented the progress of their projects, which again demonstrated the potential to great collaborations across the network and initiated feedback from fellow students and PIs. The day came to an end with a walk in the Taunus forest, chats, and casual games of dart and pool.
Training
The remaining time of the workshop was used for training activities covering different aspects of fragment screening and structure-based drug discovery. Talks by Prof Charlotte Held Gotfredsen (DTU), Dr Anna Wacker (GUF), Prof Daniel Häussinger (UB), Dr Marcel Blommers (Saverna Therapeutics) and Dr Christian Tyrchan (AstraZeneca) provided different perspectives and examples based on their own respective research.
To make industry more approachable from an academic perspective, Dr Oliver Röder, former PhD student in the group of Prof Harald Schwalbe (GUF) and now working at BioNTech, shared valuable insights concerning his work routine in industry and his recent process of moving from academia to industry. Prof Bengt Erik Haug (UiB) showed ways to get innovative ideas born in academia into industry. The week was finished by a workshop covering data management, licensing and data base deposition with Dr Korbinian Bösl (Elixir Norway).