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In: BESSYBeamlineScientists, Careers, Lightsources

Chemist Manfred Weiss manages the MX beamlines at BESSY II in Berlin-Adlershof, Germany. Here, researchers and pharmaceutical companies study the structure of crystalline molecules and discover triggers of disease – mostly in the search for new medicines. He still clearly remembers the call that came in at 4 a.m.: Manfred Weiss was the scientist on standby in case of problems, and on the other end of line were the scientists currently experimenting at one of his beamlines. “We’re finished. Everything went well, thank you,” they informed the sleepy chemist. This was a few years ago and it still makes Weiss smile to think back toRead More →

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In: Careers, Energymaterials

Adopting the reader’s perspective might help to set your proposal into a broader context and suggest relevant potential impact Some weeks ago, EU expert Seán McCarthy gave a workshop at HZB entitled “How to Write a Competitive Proposal for Horizon 2020”. The lecture hall was packed with scientists waiting for instructions and McCarthy delivered plenty. “The secret is understanding the evaluation process”, McCarthy pointed out. In other words: Put yourself into the shoes of the evaluators who will read your proposal and make the decisions. Peer reviewers want facts at a glance, details by further reading Scientific experts who may not be native English speakersRead More →

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In: Careers, International, Students

At HZB about 150 young scientists are working on their doctoral dissertation. 81 come from abroad to Berlin to do their PhD in the HZB labs in Wannsee or Adlershof. The PhD students at HZB have organized themselves: twice a month, they invite to an informal get-together, they plan workshops and an annual PhD retreat in a country hotel in Brandenburg. This is actively supported by the management. I recently asked Daniel Meza, one of eight current doctoral student representatives about their activities. Daniel, why do you work as a representative in the PhD students organization ? Daniel: Maybe it’s a bit romantic, but forRead More →

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In: Careers, International, Lightsources, Students

“Growing those crystals in the lab is much more tricky than I thought”, Nickie Messini says. “But I really like it as much as the computational analysis for structure refinement!” The young bachelor student from University of Patras, Greece, has already produced some tiny crystals of the protein Endothiapepsin at the MX lab for protein crystallography at BESSY II. It is not easy to force those large Endothiapepsin molecules into the rigid order of a crystal, but Nickie knows how to achieve it. Endothiapepsin crystals are ideally suited as a model system to facilitate the search for new drugs by a method called fragment screening.Read More →

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An unusual science conference (not only) for young female scientists: April 29-30, 2018 Near the city of Goslar in the beautiful Harz mountains, an unusual science meeting is organised. The location is the Mönchehaus Museum (www.moenchehaus.de). I was attending this conference some years ago and I can really recommend it. The speakers are exclusively very renowned women in materials science, heading institutes at MIT, MPG or other prestigious research institutions. And multiple occasions are given to get into exchange with them. Discussions were open and vivid, and I guess many young women got motivated to strive for a scientific career. The organiser, Prof Katarina Al-Shamery, CarlRead More →

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In: Careers

  Romania joined the European Union in 2007, continuing to be one of the poorest of its member states – for comparison, Germany’s GDP is currently €38 000 whereas Romania’s is instead €8 600. However through education and research a way to a better future can be paved. It was for this reason that we went on the road in October 2017. We wanted to tell our Romanian colleagues about the different possibilities that European light sources offer to their research, and about which funding possibilities they could apply for. Hardly any of them were aware that the use of the facilities is free ofRead More →

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Altmetrics just published the list of the top 100 scientific articles of 2017, which attracted the most online attention. None of the articles in the top 100 is dealing with materials research. Nevertheless, already the second most spread article is concerning us as well: It is a study on mental health of PhD students. The paper was spread more than 7000 times by twitter, posted 117 times on facebook and quoted in more than 20 online-articles. And it is giving food for thought: Every third PhD suffering seriously According to the study “Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students”, published in Research Policy,Read More →