On October 25 the Opening of the Academic Year 2013/2014 was held at Biocentrum Ochota. The PhD students of IIMCB organized the ceremony with the invited keynote speakers, prof. Gottfried Schatz, prof. Ineke Braakman and a special guest, the co-recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, prof. Brian Kobilka.

The event started with the awards ceremony for the best PhD dissertations of year 2012. The opening lecture ‘’Science and the modern university’’ was delivered by prof. Gottfried Schatz,[nbsp] Professor emeritus of University of Basel, Switzerland. The next lecture ‘’From Pharmacy to Molecular Cell Biology’’ was presented by prof. Ineke Braakman from the Utrecht University, the Netherlands. There was a competition for the best PhD student talks. During the coffee break, there were three speakers' corners where PhD students could ask questions to prof. Schatz, prof. Braakman and prof. Kobilka. There was a poster session with a competition for the best poster.

The ceremony was honored by the presence of prof. Michał Kleiber, the President of the Polish Academy of[nbsp] Sciences and directors of all individual institutes of Biocentrum Ochota. More than 150 PhD students of Biocentrum Ochota participated in the event. Furthermore, PhD students from Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics (Ukraine), Utrecht University (the Netherlands) and Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (Switzerland) accepted the invitation and joined the Opening.

The event was supported by all institutes of Biocentrum Ochota. Moreover, EMBO supported prof. Schatz's lecture and VitaInSilica, Life Technologies, Eppendorf and Sigma-Aldrich were the sponsors of the awards.

For more information and the abstract book please visit the official page of the event: http://www.biocentrumochota.pan.pl/OpeningAcademicYear

To see photographs from the Opening please visit:
http://www.iimcb.gov.pl/opening-of-the-academic-year-20132014-at-biocentrum-ochota.html