Our Final Showcase Symposium took Place on 22 May 2024 in Heraklion, Greece, as a satellite Symposium to the 4th NextGenBioCat, 20-21 May 2024.
The NextGenBioCat conference series is an international young investigator symposium, and hence the most suitable opportunity for our 15 Early Stage Researchers to present their research and achievements! The ESRs have planned and organised the CC-TOP Symposium day. TU Darmstadt, in cooperation with the University of Crete supported this initiative. We invited as our keynote speakers five internationally renowned scientists in the field of biocatalysis: Prof. Marco Fraaije (University of Groningen), Assoc. Prof. Melanie Hall (University of Graz), Assist. Prof. Sandy Schmidt (University of Groningen), Dr. Radka Snajdrova (Novartis Pharma AG, Switzerland), Dr. Xavier Garrabou Pi (Lock and Key Biosciences GmbH, Switzerland).
Three of the CC-TOP ESRs were also selected by the NextGenBiocat Scientific Programme Committee for a presentation in the main symposium. These were ESR1 Theofania Andreadaki (PROZO), ESR5 Alessia Tonoli (UCL), and ESR6 Camilla Leogrande (UGOE), whose topics were particularly attractive for their complementary scientific focus. All other ESRs presented their CC-TOP project results in posters during the NextGenBiocat symposium and in several presentations on the CC-TOP Symposium day.
It was a successful final showcase event with 150 participants coming from 49 European and 1 American universities, 12 companies from the fields of biocatalysis and pharmaceuticals and 5 European research institutes – from 19 countries: Austria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, UK, USA.
As a cultural activity, we visited the Minoan temple of Knossos, where experienced archeologists gave us a guided tour in this ancient Cretan civilisation, which is linked to the myth of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth.
The Final Showcase conference was a great scientific and also intercultural experience for both the Marie Curie PhD students, the Principal Investigators and all other young scientists who attended the event.
The Symposium Programme can be found here:
