What questions arise in day-to-day scientific research? How is it to work as a scientist? And how does a research group work? The opportunity to get to the bottom of these questions, to actively participate in everyday research life and to work on a real project in cutting-edge research, is offered by the Biozentrum to 20 selected Bachelor students, with this new chance to experience what scientific research is all about. The program starts in summer 2018.
"With the new Biozentrum Research Summer internship program, we offer motivated students the opportunity to experience first-hand research at an even earlier career stage than they do already," says Prof. Sebastian Hiller, Chair of the Teaching Committee at the Biozentrum, University of Basel and head of the new program. Studying at the Biozentrum is highly practice oriented: In their third year, the students actively conduct research during four six-week block courses and Master's students work predominantly in the lab. So far, however, there has not been a program specially tailored to suit students earlier on in their course of studies.
The internships are ideally suited for students at the end of their second year of study. The program is not only open to applicants from Biology, but also to interested Bachelor students from the Nanosciences, Chemistry, Physics, Computational Sciences and related fields. During mid-July to mid-September, the students work for up to nine weeks under the supervision of an experienced scientist in one of the Biozentrum’s research groups. The participants can train their scientific thinking, as well as how to document and present research results and how to deal with different question in the life sciences and they will also learn different lab techniques. The subject matter of the research projects is diverse, ranging from structural, computational and cell biology to developmental biology, microbiology and neurobiology.
"The Biozentrum has also looked after trainees in the past," says Hiller. "However, with the launch of the Biozentrum Research Summer program, we can better meet the needs of this student group, create a larger number of internships and offer an attractive program of scientific and social events for the participants. Our goal is also to bring the participants together, to form a group which is firmly anchored in the Biozentrum."
March 08, 2018