EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) is Europe’s flagship for the life sciences, founded in 1974 and is funded by the contributions of its 20 European member states. Australia was the first associated country to join in 2008. EMBL Australia was created to maximise the benefits of Australia’s associate membership of EMBL. It creates opportunities for internationalising Australian research, empowering and training early career researchers/research leaders and embedding powerful new enabling tools such as bioinformatics and systems biology in Australian life science.
From the 30th June to the 11th July 2014 I attended a two week EMBL Australia PhD course based at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. This is the second year that the course has been run for early-stage PhD students. There were 60 students on the course studying a wide variety of life sciences from WA, NSW, VIC, ACT and SA. The course consisted of lectures, workshops, panel discussions, a student poster session, and a field trip to the Australian Institute of Sport and the Mount Stromlo Observatory.
The lecture topics included:
- Gene expression and genomes
- Structural biology
- RNA regulation
- Cell biology
- Developmental biology
- Neuroscience
- Animal models of disease
- Bioinformatics
- Crop genetic engineering
- Systems biology
- Stem cell science
- Translational and clinical sciences
- Science communication
Throughout the course there were some specific lectures on genomics, gene expression and bioinformatics that will be very useful for my own PhD research. I also learnt about different scientific research areas and some methods and approaches that were not directly related to my topic, but provided inspiration to think laterally about my project. I really enjoyed hearing from successful researchers about their career paths and how they made decisions about jobs and other opportunities to end up where they are now.
I also gained invaluable knowledge and advice from informal networking opportunities with the lecturers, course organisers and the other students. To be in such a close environment for two weeks (living, eating, learning and travelling together) meant we not only had time to share our own research interests but also share personal experiences about completing a PhD. Our student cohort also has formed a committee, of which I am a member, to organise the 2nd EMBL Australia PhD symposium in 2015. I am very grateful for the support of Sock it to Sarcoma! to have been able to attend the course. I took great pride in presenting my work and the message of Sock it to Sarcoma! to other students and staff (yes, there were many PhD students that had never heard of sarcoma before!) The friendships and collaborations I have formed during these brief two weeks will continue to influence my PhD over the next few years, and I’m sure will inspire decisions about my career in the future.
