EVENTS
The activities of the Research Training Group 2599 include internal scientific events such as mini-symposia, internal retreats and networking meetings, as well as the organization of an international congress and public relations events. In addition, our doctoral candidates are prepared for their later professional careers with the help of selected workshops.
Paul-Ehrlich Club (obligatory)
Together with the RTG’s scientific coordinator, the doctoral candidates will organize the bi-monthly RTG Paul-Ehrlich-Club. This event will not only foster the interaction of Dr. rer. nat. candidates with fast-track candidates during their qualifying phase and Dr. med. candidates during their preparation phase, but it will also improve scientific exchanges across RTG labs. The club will provide a platform for discussing methodological problems in the lab and papers describing new concepts in immunology. RTG researchers, as well as external guest speakers, will contribute with presentations on new techniques (e.g., genome editing, imaging techniques and animal models in immunology) and latest developments in clinical immunology and immunotherapies in multimodal concepts. We believe that the interactive format of the Paul-Ehrlich-Club will increase the willingness of our doctoral candidates to discuss scientific findings with other RTG members.
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Internal GRK Retreats (obligatory)
Besides the Paul-Ehrlich-Club and the TAC meetings, these 2,5-day events, which will be attended by all RTG project leaders and all doctoral candidates, will be another essential instrument for internal scientific exchange. All doctoral fellows will present their research results. At the same time, the project leaders will be able to evaluate the progress of each doctoral candidate. Every two years, the external advisory board will also be invited to this meeting.
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GRK Networking meeting (obligatory)
The networking meetings also take place annually. This platform of scientific interactions was successfully set up during two former RTGs with RTGs from Würzburg (T. Hünig) and Tübingen (H.-G. Rammensee). We will continue this successful event with immunologically oriented RTGs and immunologists from Tübingen and Mainz. This event will offer our doctoral fellows a platform to present their research in poster sessions and oral presentations outside of Erlangen and expand their scientific networks with other related research groups.
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Mini-Symposia
The doctoral candidates can invite external guest speakers for the RTG Paul-Ehrlich-Club, the immunology seminar series jointly organized with the Medical Immunology Campus Erlangen (MICE) as well as the half-day RTG mini-symposia with focus on a particular immunological topic, e.g., neuroinflammation, antibody engineering, microbiota and immunity, fetal immune barriers, and vaccination.
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International GK Symposium on Regulators of Adaptive Immunity
This series of symposia, which was an essential part of the two predecessors RTG592 and RTG1660, will be organized again once in the new RTG2599 in 2023. Renowned scientists from all over the world will be invited to the International RTG Symposium “Regulators of Adaptive Immunity” by our doctoral candidates. Besides, they will entirely organize the symposium and will have the opportunity to intensively discuss their research results with the guest speakers in a closed poster session and during the Speakers’ Dinner.
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Public Relations (obligatory)
To communicate the importance of immunology for public health and animal experiments in biomedicine and to inform the general public about relevant immunological topics such as vaccination, allergies, and immunotherapies of cancer and inflammatory diseases, our doctoral candidates will organize the “Day of Immunology.” This event will be arranged together with selected RTG PIs once a year during an afternoon in the pedestrian zone of Erlangen. Also, each doctoral candidate is encouraged to support the DGfI website Immunology4you (www.das-immunsystem.de) and to write an article about the topic of her or his doctoral thesis that can be published in the session “Immunologie leicht gemacht” of the new journal Trillium Immunologie of the German Society of Immunology.
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Participation in DGfI Immunology Schools (obligatory).
In their first year, all doctoral candidates will participate in the Autumn School “Current Concepts in Immunology” organized by the German Society for Immunology (DGfI). This school targets beginners and provides overview lectures from experts in the entire field of immunology. Moreover, the doctoral fellows can present and discuss their thesis projects in an interactive way in a poster and a meet-the-speaker session. More advanced doctoral candidates might also apply to the optional DGfI Spring School in immunology.
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RTG regulars’ table (Stammtisch).
The monthly RTG “Stammtisch” is another communication platform for all doctoral candidates to strengthen the cooperate identity of the RTG and discuss new and on-going activities, plan public relations activities, and organize the guest speaker seminar visits. The speakers of the doctoral candidates will also inform all doctoral fellows about their monthly lunch meeting with the RTG speaker and coordinator.
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External research internships during the doctoral phase.
Short-term rotations (up to 8 weeks) in laboratories of collaboration partners or other groups preferentially outside of Germany will be available for Dr. rer. nat. candidates who work on one of the 17 projects. These rotations are primarily intended to help the doctoral candidates to learn a technique or get familiar with a model system that is not well established in Erlangen and is essential to complete the thesis. In addition, the rotation program can also support Dr. rer. nat. candidates preferentially in their last year to visit labs outside of Germany to explore future postdoctoral positions.
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Workshops
In order to prepare our junior staff in the best possible way for an academic career, we offer so-called soft and hard skills courses. These range from presentation skills, grant writing and scientific writing to bioinformatics, statistics and computer courses, and a symposium on a career beyond academic research.
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