One hundred PhD students showcased their research at the Interuniversity PhD Student Day in Namur!

The third edition of the "Interuniversity PhD student day” took place at the University of Namur on September 9, 2022. This event, organized by the FNRS thematic doctoral school “Cellular and Molecular Biology, Biochemistry” (EDT-BCMB), gathered 200 researchers from the Federation Wallonia-Brussels.
At this occasion, 100 PhD students shared their research projects through flash talks and posters. Before the poster sessions, the doctoral students were given the opportunity to show one slide to generate interest and focus attention on the topic of their research. Flash talks were then followed by a highly interactive poster exhibition allowing PhD students to further detail their research findings, answer questions and gain feedback from other researchers.

The event also featured two outstanding lectures from Keynote Speakers in the field of biochemistry and cellular/molecular biology. The morning started with a keynote by Prof. Ludo Van Den Bosch, group leader of the Laboratory of Neurobiology at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research. His fascinating talk shed light on the role and therapeutic potential of liquid-liquid phase separation in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In the afternoon, the floor was given to Prof. Thierry Voet, director of the KU Leuven Institute of Single Cell Omics (LISCO) and head of the Laboratory of Reproductive Genomics. He delivered a captivating talk on his work aiming to develop innovative methods for single-cell (epi)genomics and transcriptomics. He gave more insight into the application of these methods to study the nature, extent and biology of cellular heterogeneity in health and disease.

The day was closed with the announcement of the two “best poster” awards. The prize winners selected by the scientific committee of the EDT-BCMB are: Nour Mhaidly, PhD student in the team of Prof. Sven Saussez at UMons, for her poster entitled “Macrophage Plasticity and Function in the Head and Neck Tumor Microenvironment in 3D multicellular Spheroid model” and Margaux Claes, PhD student in the team of Prof. Franck Dequiedt at ULiège for her poster entitled “The transcription factor FOXM1 regulates mRNA stability”. Congratulations to both of them!

Local organizers:
Prof. Thierry Arnould and Prof. Michel Jadot, UNamur

EDT-BCMB scientific committee:
Thierry Arnould (UNamur), Frédérique Coppée (UMons), Anabelle Decottignies (UCLouvain), Franck Dequiedt (ULiège), Michel Ghislain(UCLouvain), Michel Jadot (UNamur), Jason Perret (ULB), Jacques Piette (ULiège), Catherine Sadzot (ULiège) and Luc Vanhamme (ULB)