3rd Retreat 2014

The Systems Biology PhD Retreat 2014 took place in Weggis, Lucerne, from 22^nd to 24^th of September. Our choice this year was the Seminar Hotel Rigi, a unique place located right on the shores of the lake. The location was ideal for our yearly retreat, offering the opportunity to the students of the program to meet each other, work together and initiate fruitful discussions, while enjoying the natural beauty of the region.

Taking into account the diversity in the background of the participating students, the scientific program was designed based on both the experimental as well as the computational aspects of Systems Biology.

Academic speakers included Otto Cordero (ETHZ) and Periklis Pantazis (ETHZ) from the LSZGS SysBio PhD program, as well as John McKinney (EPFL), Tobias Bollenbach (IST Austria) and Vera van Noort (KU Leuven). This year, we were also very excited to welcome a speaker from industry for the first time. Ben-Fillippo Krippendorff (Roche) gave us an enlightening talk, providing some insight into scientific research in industry. A more detailed description of the retreat’s program can be found Downloadhere (PDF, 328 KB)vertical_align_bottom.

Seeking for opportunities to bring the students of the program together, we organized group assignments on which the students had to work during the 3 days of the retreat and finally present their work in a poster session. The aim of the assignment was for the students to prepare a poster presenting a research proposal based on the PhD project of one of the team members. Basic requirement was that every person in the team should have a role in the proposed project. All teams invested significant amount of time and effort on coming up with novel and original ideas which received excellent evaluation both from the students’ and the invited speakers’ part of the audience.  

This year’s main social activity aimed at bringing people together while at the same time encouraging their creativity. external pageTeam Workscall_made helped us organize a “Director’s Cut” activity, where the students had to work in groups towards the creation of a short movie based on a given set of costumes. In order for the teams to create a quality end product, they had to communicate their ideas effectively, delegate the workload and manage their time well. As a common denominator all the created movies had to relate in some way to the catchphrase “Crazy Science!” So, after 3 hours of fun and hard work, all teams finally enjoyed the viewing of their very well thought and entertaining movies with a cold beer

Eleni Karamasioti (Stelling Group), Anna Klimovskaia (Claassen Group), Patrizia Spoerri (Müller Group)

About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world’s largest biotech company, with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, immunology, infectious diseases, ophthalmology, and neuroscience. Roche is also the world leader in in vitro diagnostics and tissue-based cancer diagnostics, and a frontrunner in diabetes management. Roche’s personalized healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostics that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life, and survival of patients. Founded in 1896, Roche has been making important contributions to global health for more than a century. Twenty-four medicines developed by Roche are included in the World Health Organization Model Lists of Essential Medicines, among them life-saving antibiotics, antimalarials, and chemotherapy.

In 2013 the Roche Group employed over 85,000 people worldwide, invested 8.7 billion Swiss francs in R&D, and posted sales of 46.8 billion Swiss francs. Genentech, in the United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche is the majority shareholder in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more information, please visit external pageroche.comcall_made