there is a new group about facebook here at network.nature.com. So I have tried a similar thing and created a group to connect our network here to the German XING network.

I have not been very active there, maybe because I had the impression that it is more business oriented and not enough science oriented, but at least I have found am Alumni Group of my old university there!

The contacts are growing fast and seem to very valuable as well.

I have posted something about my new group there in the XING forum and will see how people respond to it.

This group here is doing well and I see especially possibilities for networking for members of this group with people at XING.

Special Guest Lecture within the framework of the Graduate College 1208 (www.endogk.de)
“Hormonal Regulation of Energy Metabolism, Body Weight and Growth”

and of the Berlin Hormone Colloquium

“Common QTL genes or gene networks for metabolic syndrome?”

Dr. Renhua Li

The Jackson Laboratory, ME, USA

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

6:00 – 7:00 PM

Venue: Charité – Campus Virchow Klinikum

Augustenburger Platz 1, 13353 Berlin, Hörsaal Dermatologie

(internal address: Ostring 1)
Charité Campus Mitte
The lecture is open to all interested persons !

The press release (in German) is here and Science also reported this.

For a start, this link provides information by the Forschungsverbund Berlin (which translates into ‘Research Network Berlin’) in pdf format (a pdf reader will be required).

We will add more links to this page asap.

sorry if this may seem a bit of self-advertisement, but with regards to a few posts about science seminars in Berlin I thought that I would post about the relatively recently created Berlin Forum on Inflammation and Pain which involves monthly seminars to bring together pain and inflammation researchers in Berlin.

The next seminar is on Thursday being held by me entitled: Inflammatory Insensitivity in the African naked mole-rat: what does it tell us about pain?

The seminar will be held in the DRFZ Seminar room 1/2 Charitéplatz 1/Virchowweg 12 at 17:30 this Thursday (17th April).

It would be great to see people there!

Cheers,

Ewan

About 10 NNBerliners showed up to chat with Alison and to discuss general topics in science and about science in Berlin in particular. I think everyone had a great time and enjoyed the evening.

What was a bit disappointing was the fact that no students participated in the event. In the end only PostDocs and group leaders mingled over scientific topics and enjoyed a couple of drinks and a fine diner.

Now folks, as group leaders this is pretty much what we do every day. If we wanted to meet with other group leaders only, we could also do this in private and wouldn’t need to run a public network group.

The basic idea of Nature Network Berlin is to also give students the opportunity to participate in activities that they would otherwise not have access to (like talking to a senior Nature editor over a glass of beer, for example). We actively try to promote events which are especially targeted at you (students) and hope that, in the future, more of you will take advantage of these possibilities.

What also surfaced at last nights’ meeting was that most people didn’t quite understand why they should join the NNBerlin group. What is the advantage of being part of this network?

Again, we will promote and organize events that are not part of any other conference/lecture/seminar schedule. You will be able to meet with people that we think offer unique insights into different areas of science and/or into different aspects of science (like effectively executing, publishing, writing, communicating etc). In addition, we will also organize sessions that we think might be especially useful for NNBerlin members. Like on how to get funded, for example. Whether you want to apply for a PostDoc fellowship, or start your own company. We hope to bring to you representatives from Europes’ leading funding agencies for an informal NN-promoted exchange of ideas.

In other words, you will have access to science-related activities, simply by being part of the network, that are exclusively advertised on the NNBerlin web site. If you see something you like, just show up at the indicated time/location. No signing up required.

And once again, we specifically and strongly encourage students to participate in our events!

We require proficiency in computer programming. Knowledge of Perl, Python, C++, Java or another high level programming language is assumed, and basic knowledge of HTML, relational databases and Linux will be appreciated. An understanding of Molecular Biology and familiarity with biomedical databases will also be beneficial.
We offer a dynamic environment in a friendly and active growing research group involved in multiple collaborations with computational and experimental groups locally and abroad. The candidates will be integrated into projects with long term funding in collaboration with MDC experimental groups. The topics of research include the development and application of computational algorithms and databases of biomedical data to the study of genes and proteins involved in human disease.

Candidates can email me a CV to
miguel.andrade@mdc-berlin.de