Upcoming Events

Date: Monday 20th - Tuesday 21st July 2020

Location: online

Trainer: Markus Ackermann

Description: This workshop will be useful both for people looking into patenting their inventions, as well as those interested in the patent-related careers.

You can read a lot about patents and other industrial property rights. However, there are two fundamental problems for young professionals in life sciences trying to find out about a possible career in the field of industrial property. First, it has been extremely hard to get an idea of what a patent attorney’s daily work looks like. Second, there has been no training or workshop material specifically tailored for people with a background in life sciences.

This workshop offers the unique opportunity to explore a patent attorney’s daily work by means of a case study that is based on a real patent case. It is conceived in a way to mimic the training experience of a trainee in a patent attorney’s office. Thus, the workshop is hands-on training and you will have to jump in at the deep end. Moreover, you will work on a life-science case throughout the workshop and get insights into the various legal aspects (including case law) that a patent attorney must be knowledgeable about. Finally, you will learn to appreciate the similarities and differences between different jurisdictions (such as European, German, and U.S.).

 
Date: Monday 28th - Wednesday 30th September 2020

Location: Large Conference Room, 1st floor, T-building, MPI of Biochemistry

Trainer: Rick Scavetta

Description: This workshop enables life scientists to effectively and rapidly analyse their data using the R software package.

Participants learn how to:

• operate R using variables, functions, indexing, and packages.
• import their own data regardless of size or format.
• perform standard statistical tests on large data-sets.
• produce plots and highlight specific data-points.
• begin programming in R using the apply functions.
• use split-combine-apply strategies for calculations and data manipulation.
• begin to adopt a bioinformatician’s perspective.

 
Date: Monday 5th - Wednesday 7th October 2020

Location: Large Conference Room, 1st floor, T-building, MPI of Biochemistry

Trainer: Ruth Willmott

Description: Do you have data to publish, but keep putting off writing that paper because you don’t know where to begin? 

How to get started and keep going as well as what goes where and in which tense will be the starting point of this workshop. We will also review key scientific sentence structures as well as strategies to keep your text concise and precise. Issues such as how to create flow and generate the correct level of emphasis will also be discussed. Together we will explore how to make scientific writing understandable and readable and begin the process of integrating these factors into your own scientific writing style. Finally, we will formulate a plan on how you can improve your scientific vocabulary and writing style for future writing tasks. The Scientific Writing Workshop is ideal for non-native English-speaking early-stage research scientists

Date: Thursday 8th - Friday 9th October 2020

Location: Large Conference Room, 1st floor, T-building, MPI of Biochemistry

Trainer: Andreas Kist

Description: Programming is a highly desirable and applicable skill in science. With the open source and universal programming language Python, you can acquire, analyze, and present your data easily without leaving one programming environment.

This workshop focuses on scientific image processing using Python. We discuss different file formats and origins, how to open different file formats and deal with metadata. We cover basic image processing principles such as histogram equalization, (local) thresholding, alignment and segmentation. For each topic, we will use real data to showcase the applicability of the learned functions. On the second day, we will further emphasize functions that fit the students’ needs and invite one to two speakers that show briefly where they use Python in image processing. The course also highlights strategies how to tackle an image processing pipeline.

This course will be adjusted according to the participants’ background.

Course aim:
Use the skimage and OpenCV package to process imaging data.

Date: Thursday 22nd - Friday 23rd October 2020

Location: Large Conference Room, 1st floor, T-building, MPI of Biochemistry

Trainer: Marco Masia

Description:
The workshop will focus on core concepts in entrepreneurial capacity building, using the approach pioneered by the Harvard Business School, that is currently used by leading Business Schools worldwide. In addition to its core components, the workshop will tailor specific elements to the customer expertise, research programme, and needs. This workshop is structured to teach researchers how to navigate an entrepreneurial journey from idea generation to starting a business.

Working in teams, Researchers will be trained to identify an entrepreneurial idea, make it profitable, improve on it, start a business, and deliver a successful product. Key learning objectives are: 

1. To understand the challenges of creating a business and how to overcome them; 
2. To identify the risks involved in an entrepreneurial endeavor and avoid typical pitfalls; 
3. To understand which strategies need to be followed in order to be successful in business.

The trainer, Dr. Marco Masia, is a scientist and entrepreneur. With a MSc in Chemistry and a PhD in Physics, he has worked as a Professor of Theoretical Chemistry for ten years at the University of Sassari. He has published many high impact papers (in Science, and other highly ranked journals), participated in European projects, and collaborated with diverse research teams across the world. With a Masters of Business Administration from the Frankfurt School of Business, he has founded and managed a start-up, has managed a large non-profit organization, and currently advises start-ups and SMEs. The training syllabus draws from his unique experience in research, business and entrepreneurship, and management, and is tailored specifically to researchers.

Date: Saturday 7th November 2020

Location: Small Conference Room, 1st floor, T-building, MPI of Biochemistry

Trainer: Ruth Willmott

Description: The Career Orientation: Shaping and Steering your Career Path workshop is aimed at providing you with (1) professional advice on what your career options are and (2) hands-on mentoring on how to make it on your chosen career path whether in academia or on the wider market or both. Such an approach will allow you to make informed strategic choices on how best to shape and steer your career path.

 
Date: Monday 7th - Wednesday 9th December 2020

Location: Large Conference Room, 1st floor, T-building, MPI of Biochemistry

Trainer: Ruth Willmott

Description: Do you have data to publish, but keep putting off writing that paper because you don’t know where to begin?

How to get started and keep going as well as what goes where and in which tense will be the starting point of this workshop. We will also review key scientific sentence structures as well as strategies to keep your text concise and precise. Issues such as how to create flow and generate the correct level of emphasis will also be discussed. Together we will explore how to make scientific writing understandable and readable and begin the process of integrating these factors into your own scientific writing style. Finally, we will formulate a plan on how you can improve your scientific vocabulary and writing style for future writing tasks. The Scientific Writing Workshop is ideal for non-native English-speaking early stage research scientists