EVENTS
PhD Day organized by the University of Luxembourg, in Partnership with CRP-Santé
16/09/2010 9:00 am
- Language: English
- Location: University of Luxembourg
- Contact: evelyne.friederich@uni.lu
On September 16, the University of Luxembourg will organize the annual PhD Day.
This year, CRP-Santé is taking actively part in this important event and will give 5 oral presentations and display more than 20 posters on its scientific work done by students. More than just a presentation, this special day is also the occasion for students to think about their career and to draw conclusions of their experience. What is indeed the opinion of PhD students on the last three years of their research? Comments and details with Stephane Tholl from the Laboratory of Plant Molecular Biology / CRP-Santé.
Stéphane is currently finishing his PhD and will introduce a poster during the PhD Day organized by the University of Luxembourg in partnership with CRP-Santé.
Two years and a half after he began his PhD, he has decided to start a fourth year in order to finalise his thesis about “the actin cytoskeleton in the plant cell response to mechanical forces”. Registered at the "Doctoral School of Life Sciences and Health" in Strasbourg, he is expected to present a mid path Thesis review consisting of a small group of external senior colleagues helping the PhD student to plan and canalize their thesis work. “Six month ago I was fortunate to benefit from this Thesis Committee, which was really relevant in order to exchange with external scientists. This gave me the opportunity to discuss my results with scientists of the University of Luxembourg but also to start collaborations with the IBMP in Strasbourg“. Furthermore, we asked Stéphane, what was the best asset during his CRP-Santé thesis, he replies “well, definitely the responsibilities I had. Of course I was guided by my thesis advisor, but he asked me to drive my project on my own and this was really a proof of confidence. This year, I also had the opportunity during one week to attend the American Society of Plant Biology conference held in Canada. This is one of the largest conferences in Plant Biology”.
But his career was not always as easy as it seemed. At the beginning I felt a bit isolated as a PhD Student but since then, internal communication has evolved and I received all invitations to external and internal speakers’ presentations. I was also integrated through social events (cohesion day for instance). The easiness to exchange materials with other CRP-Santé labs was remarkable, we were not in trouble with administrative formalities.
The PhD BioLux Network created last June by CRP and the University students was also an asset according to Stéphane: “This is a great occasion to stay in contact with other PhD Students. That was not really the case between the different institutions before. Thanks to this network, I could participate to other CRP’s conferences and it gave me the opportunity to know other scientists working in Luxembourg.”
Even if being involved in scientific events takes time, Stéphane is actively participating to events like the Researchers Night or the Science. A duty? Not really, more a spontaneous initiative: “Before starting my thesis, I wanted to become a teacher. I have always Ioved teaching and explaining biology to other people. I also think that, in a company,you have to be involved. I am one of those who think that what you receive by other people, should be given back by yourself.
Next Year, Stéphane will pass a fourth year of training (as 80 % of PhD students from the University of Strasbourg) and will have then to choose between a post-doc abroad or another laboratory in Luxembourg. His only fear: not having such a dynamic and cool team as in the Laboratory of Plant Molecular Biology!
About Stéphane Tholl:
Poster:
Titre: Tobacco WLIM1 is an actin regulatory protein potentially involved in mechanical stress-induced responses
International Network Plant Abiotic Stress (INPAS) conference, Tartu, Estonia May 14-17, 2009
American Society of Plant Biology, ASPB, Montreal, Canada July 31-August 4, 2010
Papers:
Actin bundling in plants . Cell Motility and the Cytoskeleton 66, 940-957, Thomas, C., Tholl, S ., Moes, D., Dieterle, M., Papuga, J., Moreau, F., and Steinmetz, A. (2009)
The six two LIM domain-containing proteins of Arabidopsis define an entire family of actin bundlers with distinct expression patterns and modes of regulation . Plant Cell, 2010 (accepted), Papuga J., Hoffmann C., Dieterle M., Moes D., Moreau F., Tholl S. , Steinmetz A. and Thomas C.
About the PhD Day : Here are some of the topics which will be presented by CRP-Santé:
- Investigation of natural killer (NK) cells in TAP deficiency
- Micellar electrokinetic chromatography for simultaneous quantification of zidovudine, stavudine, lamivudine and nevirapine in human plasma.
- Plant LIM proteins exhibit identical actin regulatory activities but different modes of regulation, Etc.