The 2nd Summer School and International Meeting were supposed to take place in July in beautiful Coimbra, Portugal. However, COVID-19 had other plans for this 2020. Thus, we had to resort to other means to overcome the issues of travel restrictions all around Europe. The event was therefore moved to an online platform, producing the very first online event of the NANOSTEM Network!

Our 14 ESRs, along with 7 external participants from EIT Health PhD School, connected from all over Europe on 13th-15th July 2020 to attend the 2nd Summer School on Zoom. They had three full days during which they learnt about genetic, molecular mechanism of synaptic functions, neural stem cells and their modulation, new analytical techniques, and so much more. The participants also attended lectures in transferable skills like “Scientific writing”, “Innovation in Biotechnology” and “How to start a start-up”.

In addition, the attendees had the opportunity to challenge themselves by participating in the competition “Pitch your project – the 5 minutes challenge”. The challenge was organised by the Project Coordinator, Prof. Marina Resmini and the Project Manager, Dr Fosca Mirata. Dr Mirata, together with Dr Lino Ferreira and Dr Joana Branco, the Executive Director at Biocant - Technology Transfer Association in Portugal, judged the participants on their communication skills. The winner, Alena Vdovchenko (ESR 2) successfully explained her research project in only 5 minutes in a simple manner. She used ad hoc images and easy language suitable to a general audience.  

The ESRs also had some time for networking and interacting with each other, even though it had to be online, unfortunately.

The 2nd International Meeting took place on 16th July. During this intense full day, the ESRs took turns to present their latest results and answer to questions and curiosities from the PIs and the other fellows.

Although this event was different than initially planned, the Summer School was a success. It went by very smoothly with no technical interruption, and everyone enjoyed it.