This year’s PhD Days, held from 23rd to 25th September on the Belval Campus in Esch-sur-Alzette, combined a traditional Life Sciences PhD Day with the Euron conference, jointly organised by the Doctoral School in Science and Engineering of the University of Luxembourg and the European Graduate School of Neuroscience (Euron).

Stimulating three-day scientific meeting

Organised since 2013, the PhD Days have become a key scientific event for doctoral candidates in Luxembourg carrying out their projects in biomedical research. The meeting offers an opportunity to build networks, present findings through oral and poster presentations and receive critical feedback. Thanks to the collaboration with Euron, an international research and training network of eight universities coordinated by the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, there was a specific focus on neurosciences this year.

The three-day meeting included six keynote lectures by international invited speakers, numerous short talks by the PhD candidates, scientific workshops, poster sessions and a social event. Yue Zhang, PhD candidate at LIH’s Quantitative Biology Unit was part of the organising committee. He tells about his contribution to event organisation and his impressions:

'Organising the PhD Days was an unforgettable experience. We went through challenges but finally overcame them by great team work. I have learnt so much from it; not only techniques, but also communication skills and how to collaborate efficiently. If I had to, I would gladly do this again.’

Two awards for LIH PhD candidates

Catherine Delbrouck, PhD candidate in the Cancer Metabolism Group at LIH’s Department of Oncology, received the first prize for her poster presentation at the Life Sciences PhD Day on “metabolism mediated control of cancer cell invasion”.  Yolanda Pires Afonso, PhD candidate in the Neuro-Immunology Group at LIH’s Department of Oncology was awarded the second prize for her oral presentation at the Euron conference. She exposed her findings on “tumour-associated microglia/macrophages heterogeneity in Glioblastoma”.