Munich, 3-4 November 2016
#DareToShare
<interact> 2014
Booklet:
Speakers Pre-event:
Adan Ruben
Which departmental events have the best unguarded free food? How can you convincingly fudge data and feign progress? And why have you committed to spending the best years of your life without sunlight? Adam Ruben (PhD!) answers all of these questions in his book, Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School.
Like you, Adam Ruben once decided to enroll in grad school. He quickly realized the experience was not what he’d imagined it would be. Adam spent seven years in the Biology Department at Johns Hopkins University, working on malaria drugs that will never benefit humanity, publishing papers that no one will ever read, teaching classes no one remembers, and stealing bagels from seminars he didn’t attend.
This talk will review the low points and, well, lower points of post-baccalaureate education. Adam will discuss his own grad school experience, read excerpts from the book, and field questions from the audience. If someone points out how much better PhD programs are in Europe, Adam may cry.
After the talk, Adam will try to sell you a book. Since you’re such a nice person, you’ll buy several.
Biography
Dr. Adam Ruben obtained his PhD in molecular biology at Johns Hopkins University testing potential new malaria drugs. At the same time, he spent his nights performing as a stand-up comic, which he continues to do alongside his work at a biotech company called Sanaria Inc. This company is dedicated to the production of a malaria vaccine.
Hans peter peters
Scientists as public communicators in a complex media world
In his address at the 1977 Annual Meeting of the German Research Foundation (DFG), Helmut Schmidt, then German Chancellor, appealed to scientists to increase their public visibility. Obviously, they have listened to him. Surveys show that most researchers nowadays talk to journalists and engage in other public communication activities. Some like it, some accept it as a necessity, but few outright reject it. Scientists' motives are diverse. They may enjoy sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm with the public, they may consider it a duty towards the taxpayer, they may want to increase the 'broader impact' of their research, or they may expect benefits for their personal career, their projects and for social support of science more generally. For a long time, talking to journalists from newspapers, magazines, radio and TV has been the major form of public science communication. But the Internet has created many opportunities for direct and dialogic communication between scientists and the public via websites, blogs and social networks. Furthermore, science festivals, science cafés, science slams and open days have added occasions for scientists to interact with the public face-to-face. Still, the journalistic media continue to be particularly important. Based on empirical data from international surveys of life scientists, my talk will analyze scientists' involvement in public science communication, motivating and regulating influences of scientific communities and research organizations, and repercussions of scientists' increased media orientation on scientific research. It will furthermore discuss the prospects and pitfalls of interactions with the media for (young) researchers.
Biography
Hans Peter Peters is a senior researcher at the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, section Ethics in the Neurosciences, of Forschungszentrum Jülich, and Adjunct Professor of Science Journalism at the Free University of Berlin. His research deals with the formation of public opinion on science, technology, biomedicine and the environment under the conditions of a media society. In particular, he focuses on the interdependencies of science and journalism, the medialization of science and the role of mass media in science governance. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Network on Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) and serves on the Editorial Board of Public Understanding of Science and the Editorial Advisory Board of Science Communication.
Speakers Main-event:
Thilo Stehle
Attachment strategies of glycan-binding viruses
Virus attachment to cells initiates infection and is also a key determinant of host range, tissue tropism and pathogenesis. Carbohydrates such as sialic acid are prominently displayed on many cell surfaces, and they are frequently used by many viruses as their initial, and sometimes only, attachment receptors. Understanding how viruses engage sialic acid is essential for combating infection and designing improved therapeutic viral vectors. Recent advances in studies of virus-glycan interactions have made it possible to rapidly identify specific receptors using glycan array screening, define the atomic level structure of virus-glycan interactions using crystallography, and generate recombinant viruses or pseudoviruses to rationalize the effect of glycan binding in cell entry, tissue tropism, and disease pathogenesis.
I will report on the current state of our ongoing effort to define the receptor binding properties of human polyomaviruses, adenoviruses and coxsackieviruses. All three pathogens use sialylated glycan receptors for their cell attachment. In combination with mutagenesis experiments and functional studies, structural analyses have enabled us to understand the determinants of specificity in each case. Exploitation of these determinants provides an excellent platform for the development of antiviral agents. We are also able to show that receptor specificities can be switched through subtle changes in the binding pockets, demonstrating the dynamic aspects of virus interactions with receptors.
Biography
Thilo Stehle is Professor and Head of the Biochemistry Institute at the University of Tübingen, furthermore Adjunct Professor in Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Stehle started his scientific career as Chemistry student at the University of Freiburg, from which he also obtained his PhD in 1992 for the analysis of the structure and reaction mechanism of enzymes. He stayed in the field of structural biology for his Post-Doc and joined Stephen Harrison at Harvard University, where he elucidated the structure of complete virus particles. In 1997, Stehle established his own group at Harvard Medical School. This was the starting point for his still ongoing research about interactions between viruses and receptors on the molecular and structural level. In early 2005, Stehle moved to Tübingen and took up his current position.
Paul Frankland
Adult neurogenesis, forgetting and infantile amnesia
New neurons are continuously added to the subgranular zone of the hippocampus throughout the lifespan, but the functional consequences of hippocampal neurogenesis remain unclear. While the majority of previous studies have examined the impact of increasing or decreasing hippocampal neurogenesis on subsequent memory formation, few have examined the effects of similar manipulations on established, hippocampus-dependent memories. Computational models predict that addition of new neurons should lead to extensive remodeling of hippocampal circuits, and consequently degradation or forgetting of established memories. Consistent with this, lifespan changes in hippocampal neurogenesis are inversely correlated with memory persistence: During infancy, when hippocampal neurogenesis levels are high, freshly-generated memories tend to be rapidly forgotten. In contrast, during adulthood, when neurogenesis levels are lower, memories are typically much more persistent. We have conducted two types of experiments that suggest that neurogenesis and forgetting are causally related. First, in adult mice (P60), we find that increasing neurogenesis after memory formation is sufficient to induce forgetting. Second, in infant mice (P17), we find that decreasing neurogenesis after memory formation mitigates normal forgetting observed at this age. Our data suggest a causal relationship between neurogenesis and memory persistence, and provide a neurobiological account for infantile amnesia.
Biography
Paul Frankland started out studying Psychology at the University of Sheffield in the north of England. In order to investigate what drives human behavior, he soon switched to the more experimentally driven neurosciences where in his final year as an undergraduate student he already published his first paper with Peter Redgrave about neuronal recordings in rats. He received his PhD in neuroscience from the University of Toronto where he worked in John Yeomans lab. There he focused on electrophysiological and behavioral methods in order to map the brain circuits for the startle reflex. Prof. Frankland gained postdoctoral research experience in the lab of Alcino Silva, who had pioneered the use of gene-targeting, at Cold Spring Harbor. During his postdoc he focused on the molecular basis of behavior.
Today Paul Frankland is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto and his research focuses on how the human brain encodes, stores and maintains memories.