PI seminars at MUNI break down barriers between scientists and students

Every Friday throughout the semester, Masaryk University in Brno hosts seminars which help students find the best research group. The main goal of the Principal Investigator (IP) Seminars is to interconnect all research groups and especially their students.

The IP Seminars are held every Friday at 1pm during the entire semester on the school campus. The participants of the seminars get to learn about projects in which the scientists from CEITEC, the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Science, and FNUSA-ICRC are working.

Speakers at the seminars come from various faculties. They are nominated by the PI Seminar Committee, or the Research Group Leaders/Core Facility Heads can enroll by themselves. The presentations are assessed by the Committee, which puts emphasis on comprehensibility and interesting topics and the speaker with the best presentation about his or her project wins a prize of 1,000 euro.

Mary O´Connell, who is a member of the Committee, said that the main idea behind the PI seminars is to build synergy. “The quality of scientific research is incredibly high here at Masaryk University. Therefore, it is mainly the abilities to present and communicate research results that determine who will be the winner. Attending PI seminars is extremely beneficial for PIs, postdocs, as well as students, because one can learn not only what research is taking place in other labs in Brno, but also how to communicate research.”

Last year, Stjepan Uldrijan from the Institute of Biology at the Faculty of Medicine, MUNI, won the prize. His team had examined the relationship between cell metabolism and the signaling path which is responsible for the division of tumorous malignant melanoma cells, one of the most aggressive types of skin tumors.

Uldrijan considers the IP Seminars useful for scientists and students because thanks to them, everyone can see the work topics of their colleagues. Uldrijan explained that scientists are often isolated in their labs and focus solely on their own scope of work, so they often lose sight of what happens on the campus. At the same time, students benefit from the seminars by being exposed to different research groups directly without barriers.

You can find the schedule of upcoming seminars at: https://www.ceitec.eu/principal-investigator-seminars/t9895

Source: https://www.em.muni.cz/en/science/12062-pi-seminars-help-students-to-find-the-best-research-group