Outreach Events

Schedule (pdf)
Photos
German

Every July EMBL hosts a visit from the International Summer Science School Heidelberg (ISH) group. This year, it was already the 12th edition of this very successful programme, organised by the city of Heidelberg and inspired by the summer school programme of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

The city of Heidelberg invites a group of around 10-12 pre-college students from Heidelberg's twin towns (Bautzen, Cambridge, Kumamoto, Montpellier, Rehovot and Simferopol) to experience an one-month research training at various distinguished scientific institutions in Heidelberg. As the students possess diverse backgrounds, the first week of the programme is aimed at providing a common scientific ground before they move on to their practical placements. In addition, the programme gives the students the possibility to discover the Heidelberg area and get insights into its history and culture, through different tours and activities.

The 3-day visit at EMBL is included in the introductory week. Since last year, 2007, a group of local Heidelberg students has been joining the ISH group. This year, the "locals" came from the Helmholtz-Gymnasium, the Hölderlin-Gymnasium and the Bunsen-Gymnasium Heidelberg. A student from the European School Brussels I, who was particularly interested in biological sciences, also joined the ISH group for the visit to EMBL.

As in previous visits, ELLS designed a multidisciplinary programme that would potentially please students who aim to follow careers in diverse scientific areas (biology, physics or chemistry). This year, the programme was built around modules focusing on developmental biology, structural biology, gene expression analysis and protein purification. Each module included scientific seminars by EMBL scientists, tours to related EMBL facilities, hands-on experiments and didactic games.

The 2008 ISH group was particularly motivated and dynamic and the EMBL scientists were constantly "bombarded" with many questions. EMBL Associate Director Matthias Hentze enjoyed very much to join the group for lunch and learn about the students' projects.

Following a quiz including questions on the different activities performed, the students received a key to the EMBL treasure. They couldn't wait to open the box and were happy to find a combination of useful handouts and EMBL publicity material (T-shirts, bags, key-chains etc.) to take home. We couldn't have found a better group of ambassadors for the "EMBL culture"!

On the last day of the visit, the group watched a documentary entitled "profession researcher", directed by Claude Mouriéras portraying scientists' daily lives, from defending their theses and raising funds to the need to move for jobs and how this contributes to the so-called 'brain drain' from Europe to the USA. This was followed by a discussion with EMBL scientists on various aspects of scientists lives, on career perspectives, etc. The lively discussion went on as everyone involved in the programme joined for a final finger food and soft drinks gathering.

By mid-August, when the students' training placements were over, ELLS team members Philipp Gebhardt and Alexandra Manaia, who had designed the EMBL visit programme, joined the ISH group and the Heidelberg city organisers at the City Hall for a very nice "good-bye" and a distribution of certificates ceremony!

Good-bye ISH 2008 Group! All the best in your studies and in your projects! Many thanks to the EMBL scientists involved! Thanks to the city of Heidelberg team who manages the ISH programme! We are looking forward to the next edition in July 2009!