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News archive Prof. Dr. Sebastian Hiller

January 04, 2021

A springboard into research for Bachelor students

With the "Biozentrum Research Summer" program, Bachelor students in the sciences again have the opportunity to immerse themselves in a cutting-edge research project for seven to nine weeks and participate in an inspiring scientific and social program. Deadline for applications is February 28.

What questions arise in day-to-day scientific research? What is it like 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 again offered by the Biozentrum to about fifteen selected Bachelor students. 

The early involvement of students in real-life research has always been a tradition at the Biozentrum. Already the third year block-courses are highly practice oriented. "With the Biozentrum Research Summer, we wanted to create a further opportunity for motivated students to experience first-hand research at an even earlier career stage," says Prof. Sebastian Hiller, Chair of the Teaching Committee at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, and head of the program. And indeed, many of the participants felt that the internship was a unique chance to step out a bit of the «school mode» and into a real lab already in the second year of studies. 

The program is open to applicants from biology, but also to interested Bachelor students from the nanosciences, chemistry, physics, computational sciences and related fields. The students from all over Europe work during seven to nine weeks under the supervision of an experienced scientist in one of the Biozentrum’s research groups. The participants 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. They 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 participants are also offered an attractive program of scientific and social events, one of the goals being to bring the participants together to form a group, which is firmly anchored in the Biozentrum.