The online UIPS PhD competition was a huge success

Normally the PhD competitions take place on Department day of Pharmaceutical Sciences; together with the BKO/SKO awards, lecturer of the year, and the Award for Excellence in Pharmacy. Department day was cancelled, however, but the PhD competitions did take place, online in Microsoft Teams. For an audience of 100 colleagues, the elected PhD candidates from the five groups of UIPS presented their research in a 7-minute pitch. 

The vibe was not unlike the competitions of the previous years. 12 June 2020 was hot, just like in 2019 and 2018, when the airconditioning broke down in room DDW-M2.01. Furthermore, the presenters, as well as the audience, used photos from room M2.01 as backgrounds in Teams. And all mikes were opened for live applause. The presenters were:

•                 Rosanne van Beek, Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery
•                 Julia Bauza-Martinez, Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics
•                 Charis Rousou, Pharmaceutics
•                 Joris van Sadelhoff, Pharmacology
•                 Christine Cramer-van der Welle, Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Pharmacology

After the presentations, all with perfect timing, the Jury of PI's withdrew to a private Teams channel. In the meantime the audience witnessed the premiere of the short movie Make Medicines Work, which will be released on the Faculty of Science youtube channel. And the five contestants for the PhD publication of 2019 award were introduced by prof.dr. Roos Masereeuw, scientific director of UIPS.

•                 Frederik Broszeit, Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery
•                 Stamatia Rontogianni, Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics
•                 Irati Beltran, Pharmaceutics
•                 Suzanne Abbring, Pharmacology
•                 Joris Komen, Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Pharmacology

Click on their names link to find their nominated article.

The jury was impressed by the contributions. And this years surprise was that the winners have been working together on viruses. They have been able to come up with a solution to the problem that Influenza A H3N2 has become invisible for yearly flu surveillance.

So, Rosanne van Beek and Frederik Broszeit from CBDD have won the presentation and the publication prize respectively. And since the GDPR (AVG) protects privacy, also in online meetings, the photos of the celebration look like the one below.

So, a huge success for all. All that was lacking was a "borrel". But we will do that the moment we are allowed, that is a promise.