EMBO life science members from Europe and Taiwan visited New Delhi on 27th February, 2023 as part of their research partnership program. CSIR-IGIB had the marvelous opportunity to host them. The program was spread across the entire day, including a special soft skills workshop on “Scientific integrity: How to publish reproducible results”.
The event was flagged off by the director, CSIR-IGIB, Dr. Souvik Maiti.
Then, Dr. Debojyoti Chakraborty, who is an EMBO Young Investigator himself and the local host for the EMBO team, apprised the audience of the schedule and welcomed the speakers with his opening remarks.
EMBO Director Fiona Watt then took the stage to convey the organization’s goals and
Bettina Trueb, Head of EMBO Director’s Office, dispersed information about the opportunities EMBO offers for researchers in India. Subsequently, a series of four scientific talks ensued, all by EMBO young investigators from different countries, working on varied topics in the life sciences.
Bettina Trueb, Head of EMBO Director’s Office, dispersed information about the opportunities EMBO offers for researchers in India. Subsequently, a series of four scientific talks ensued, all by EMBO young investigators from different countries, working on varied topics in the life sciences.
The first talk by Dr. Yen-Ping Hsueh from Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan was a fascinating discovery of the predatory fungus A. oligospora luring nematodes with ‘lollipops’ loaded with ‘nerve gas’, 3-octanone, paralyzing the worm prey. Oyster mushrooms too have a similar mechanism that paralyses C. elegans. Dr. Cyril Zipfel from University of Zurich shared his findings on the multifaceted roles of receptor kinase in plant immunity & stress resistance through their study on Arabidopsis. Dr. Hind Medyouf from Georg Speyer Haus, Germany brought attention to the role of cell-cell interaction in cancer metastasis to the tumor microenvironment & how it can be leveraged to reverse microglial depletion, characteristic of brain metastasis. The database CellChatDB was also introduced to the audience as one of the latest tools to study cell-cell interactors. Nicholas McGranahan from the UCL Cancer Institute, UK concluded the scientific talks session by sharing insights on intra-tumor heterogeneity through the TRACERx study and cancer. Their unique approach to studying cancer as an evolutionary process is generating intriguing answers that enhance our understanding of underlying mechanisms in cancer.
Martina Rembold, Senior Editor at EMBO Reports then commenced the pre-lunch session with a press talk, outlining EMBO group of journals’ publishing process. Worth noting were the encouragement of open science, transparent peer-review process and quick turnaround time. She also invited questions about career as an editor, which she kindly answered over lunch.
Some registered participants were selected for the soft skills workshop on research integrity and reproducibility conducted by Céline Carret of the EMBO Solutions team conducted through the second half of the day. The young investigators on tour also spared their precious time in informal conversation with students and faculty members on campus.
Nishtha Bhargava is a Senior Research Fellow at CSIR-IGIB. In the lab, she investigates if and how cells communicate through small extracellular vesicles during stress. When she’s not in the lab she likes to listen and dance to her favourite music, read books and dream about the future. She believes animals, children and drunk people never lie and that empathy-driven rigorous science has the power to change the world