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We are delighted to announce the launch of ViBrANT, a European research and training network that plans to uncover the mysteries behind how infectious agents enter and interact with the human body. Together, we kicked-off with an action-packed week of training...
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Myself Hey! My name is Juan Leva Bueno, position ESR3 in charge of developing a nanobiosensor for pathogen analysis. I’m a 24 year-old Spaniard from Barcelona, specifically from a very cute coastal town called Cubelles. My...
Read moreHi all! My name is Jessica Ames, and I recently finished my bachelor’s degree in chemical biosciences from the University of Oklahoma. I will soon begin my work at the Pasteur Institute in Paris under the supervision of Michael Nilges,...
Read moreWithout a doubt, life has interesting ups and downs, but what makes life a nice adventure are all those moments which take your breath away and make you realise how alive you are… These are part of the chapters of my...
Read moreHello all ! My name is Sarah Barrass, and this is an introduction to the next chapter of my life - Life as a PhD Student. I am a 22 year old Brit, from the small seaside town of Whitley Bay,...
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Science has changed the way we live. Antibiotics, vaccines etc., all these breakthrough discoveries have increased our life expectancy, but we have still not mastered our art with those little microorganisms called bacteria. Today, a single celled bacterium can cause...
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“Life is sort of a circle. You come back to a lot of the interests you had early in life.” [Eric Kandel, Nobel prize winner] How it all started My name is Ina and I am the PhD student working...
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“Begin at the beginning”, the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” ...
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Me, myself and I Hi everyone! My name is Arno Thibau and I am from Belgium. Together with the other 14 early stage researchers (ESRs) I got the great opportunity to pursue a PhD via the European MSCA-ITN project: ViBrANT. If...
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A bit of Me: I am Sounak Chowdhury, Indian by origin a PhD Student at Lund University, Sweden. I come from a small town Chinsurah along the sides of the river Ganges, about 50Kms away from “The City of Joy-...
Read moreWill power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see. (Arthur Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Representation, Book 2, Chapter 19) My name is Andreas Kiessling,...
Read moreWhat it is I do! I am Maria Sande, hailing from Bangalore in the south of India. A city known for it's tech industry, gardens, pubs and mild climate. I am also one of a group of 15 doctoral students...
Read moreHello! I’m Pablo Rodríguez, ESR14. I was born and raised in Cornellà de Llobregat city, 10 minutes away from Barcelona, Spain. I lived there until I moved to Hull, England, to start my PhD with ViBrANT in August 2018. I’m...
Read moreHello! My name is Aleksandra Stasiak and I am a PhD student at Professor Thilo Stehle's group at University of Tübingen in Germany. I am interested in viruses, the mechanisms of how they interact with our bodies and how to...
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Brief about my background….. My name is Manisha Goyal and I come from a small city Saharanpur located in the northern part of India. I chose to graduate in Bioinformatics because I was fascinated by this newly emerging field. My...
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About me: My name is Theis Jacobsen and I come from Denmark. Since September 2013 I have lived in the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, together with my girlfriend where I was studying for my bachelor’s and master’s degree, where I...
Read moreLast but not the least! I am Rucha Datar and I am from Pune, India which is a big city strategically placed in the Western Ghats where it enjoys moderate climate. The nearest beach is just 2 hours by road...
Read moreIntroduction It has been roughly 289 days, 21 hours and 20 minutes since the ViBrANT PhD students have parted their ways in Frankfurt. On the 24th of June 2019, we were reunited in our headquarters at the University of Leeds,...
Read moreAs ViBrANT Team, we are glad to announce that we have attended FEMS 2019 Congress with joy, stimulation and success. We were given the opportunity to share our work and ideas with one of the most prestigious science communities around...
Read moreIt might sound far-fetched to described virus receptor discovery as a Cinderella story. But many virologists would be empathetic to Prince Charming's mission to find the mystery lady who fled the ball - leaving behind a single glass slipper. During my...
Read moreI thought I would write about my experience at µTAS (micro total analysis systems) conference as a newcomer this year. In April, I submitted an abstract of my work and got accepted for a poster presentation. µTAS 2019 continued a...
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It seems to be yesterday when my adventure as a PhD student at University of Leeds began. In a blink of an eye, I’m already in the second year! As I explained in my previous blog, the aim of my...
Read moreThe role of collagen in a diagnostic pathway During a major part of my first year of research, I was working at labs at the Centre for Nanotechnology and Smart Materials (CeNTI) here in northern Portugal. One of the aims...
Read moreThe inception of Antibiotic Apocalypse The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops. Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities...
Read morePseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram negative bacterial species which has been identified as an opportunistic pathogen responsible for causing infections in blood, lungs or other parts of the body. In 2017, multidrug-resistant (MDR) P. aeruginosa caused an estimated 32,600 infections...
Read moreTime flies by very quickly in the world of science. You start your PhD and suddenly the first year have passed. Initially, when moving away from the safe surroundings of your homeland, the time is being spend trying to adapt...
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Why Group A Streptococcus pyogenes? Group A Streptococcus (GAS) is a human specific bacterium, causing diverse effects in humans ranging from localized infections to invasive infections. GAS is known to cause sore throat/ pharyngitis but it can also cause life...
Read moreThis storm will pass. But the choices we make now could change our lives for years to come - Yuval Noah Harari, 2020 Cat Scratch Disease If you prefer an introduction that is more focused on my daily life as...
Read moreMicrobiological diagnostics is an important tool in combating emerging pathogens that seem to be able to withstand antibiotic-mediated killing by phenotypic and genetic adaptation. This is a rapid and mostly small-scale adaptation (i.e. point mutations can generate full resistance to...
Read moreHello again, my name is Aleksandra Stasiak, and my PhD project concerns human adenovirus binding to integrins. If you want to know more about it, why and how I am doing it, you can read my previous blog post “Tracking...
Read moreA bit of background About a one year and a half ago I started to write a new chapter in my life. I was awarded a Marie Curie scholarship to carry out a PhD project as part of the Viral...
Read moreIf I had told you that sugar could be used to prevent bacteria from growing, would you believe this, or would you argue against it? And if I had told you that it could even be used to kill bacteria,...
Read moreA scientist is not a politician. - Christian Drosten. The Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 is still very much prevalent at the time of writing this blog entry. Lots of countries are in various stages of the pandemic with some...
Read moreAs Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) we get the opportunity to attend lots of meetings and conferences. This gives us the chance to meet great scientists and develop our own ideas. While this is nice, what we rarely get is an...
Read moreFor this blog entry, I thought I would change the narration style a bit and try to recapitulate the year and the impact it had on my work and my life. These are unprecedented times so maybe someone might find...
Read moreIt has been several months since we have faced with the horror, the novel coronavirus. It was not long after that, the number of cases jumped quickly, and quarantines were implemented by several countries. Now, there are more than 40...
Read moreI likely spent a much larger chunk of my life thinking about viruses than the average person. But some mornings I still surprise myself by only remembering that I need to wear a mask right before boarding the bus. The...
Read moreHello! I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and I decided to record a vlog to show you a bit of my life as a PhD student (and to embarrass myself in the future). I hope you...
Read moreThe last part of the century has been impacted by the Information Age. Undoubtedly a great improvement for humanity, when a huge library full of specialized books is not necessary anymore to learn about a certain topic. Everything is at...
Read moreSince the beginning of 2020, infectious diseases have been in the public eye. With the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, being the star of the show. When the virus first arrived on the scene in December 2019, few expected that it would...
Read moreAlmost three years ago, I started a PhD in Biochemistry. While I feel like I had a pretty decent idea of what I was getting into, I find myself doing more and more tasks that are not directly related to...
Read moreAntimicrobials are a boon to mankind and have contributed significantly in medical advancements. This been said, the use of excess or at times lower dosage of antimicrobials give the microbes a chance to adapt and emerge stronger thus leading to...
Read more“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet”- Jean Jacques Rousseau PhD defines a period when you spend few years on formulating questions and trying to find answers to them. PhD studies tend to have different duration depending on which...
Read moreI’m pretty sure I speak for all ESRs within ViBrANT that stress is starting to rise sensitively now that we are coming to end. It seems like yesterday that we first met in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on a pleasant...
Read moreIt was a nice Christmas with my family in Spain (2019). Roast turkey, classic “embutidos” and all sorts of typical seafood. What I didn’t know is that I won’t spend the next Christmas with them. Instead, I was having a...
Read moreIn this ViBrANT Talk Diana, Andreas, Anchal and Sounak describe and discuss how scientist are studying proteins. Here the involved ESRs are giving an introduction to different techniques which they are using to study their proteins of interest. Afterwards the...
Read moreIn this ViBrANT TALK Juan and Maria are talking about the biosensors they have developed during their PhD. They further give their opinion on biosensors in the field of diagnostics and how biosensors can supplement the more traditional and time...
Read moreIn this ViBrANT TALK Tugce and Arno are giving us an insight into the planning of the ViBrANT 2021 conference. Together with Ina they organised a two day online conference where invited speakers and ESRs from ViBrANT got to present...
Read moreSince the day I entered the world of ViBrANT, my way of seeing science has become more realistic and practical. During this project I got to know different aspects of my research field as well as other related topics. ViBrANT...
Read moreRecently, I had an interaction session with the students of the 'Bachelor of Science' and 'Master of Science' programs in India, as one of my ViBrANT outreach activities. The objective of this session was to make them aware of the...
Read moreIn this ViBrANT TALK Aleksandra and Ina are discussing various aspects of bacteria and viruses, and why they are of interest to study. In this talk introduced to the biology, infection mechanisms and future challenges caused by these pathogenic organisms....
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