Connecting, engaging and nurturing EMBLs global community of current and former scientists, technicians, communicators and administrators
The EMBL Alumni Relations programme is built to advance EMBL and the relevance of life science research in the scientific community and society at large, by fostering connections between the laboratory, its member states, current EMBL staff, EMBL alumni, and the public.
In the five years since Luxembourg became an EMBL member state, exchange of scientists and science has gathered pace. It’s now six months since the new building for the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) was officially opened at the University of Luxembourg – the only university…
There’s only one satisfactory solution when a selection committee is challenged to decide between two equally excellent candidates: two winners! And so, on Friday 16th December, the EMBL Alumni Association board selected Gáspár Jékely, former postdoc from the Rorth and then Arendt Group, and…
Two of EMBL’s most northerly alumni tell us about life and science in their wintry lands… Varpu Marjomaki, group leader at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland Science after EMBL?I am studying endocytic membrane traffic, looking at certain picornaviruses (such as echovirus 1) that are…
In September this year the EMBL Alumni Association will be holding its three-yearly board elections. The process will be conducted online, and candidates will comprise continuing and new board members who may serve for a period of three to six years in total. Who are we looking for? Ideally, the…
‘Publish or perish’ is the mantra for many young researchers, but it was publishing of a very different kind that helped earn Amaicha Depino the John Kendrew Young Scientist Award for 2011. Since completing her EMBL postdoc in the Gross Group at Monterotondo (2004–2006), Amaicha has, with…
The EMBL Alumni Association is thrilled with a generous gift of €20,000 from Roland Specker in support of the John Kendrew Young Scientist Award – an Award that singles out and rewards former EMBL pre- and postdoc for their achievements in science and science communication. A stellar…
Three 1970s alumni now living in exotic locations share some warmth this chilly festive season… Coming to EMBL … “I was tired of the three-day work week, endless strikes, bomb explosions and annoying hoaxes of early-70s London. The job interview, conducted by Sir John Kendrew was, to my…
Revealing the transformations – past, present and future – of EMBL’s third Director General, Fotis Kafatos In the late 1960s, while describing the elegant biological and biochemical process of metamorphosis in the silk moth, thereby earning his professorship at Harvard, Fotis Kafatos may have…
“Let’s not wait until memories have faded and papers be discarded at the end of a career before deciding to save our heritage.” Scientists involved in the molecular biology revolution are aware of the transforming power of their discipline for society and history. Yet, the obsessive…
In 1980 Sven Hovmöller was a postdoc in EMBL Heidelberg’s Structural and Computational Biology Unit. His lifelong interest in China meant he was thrilled to meet another postdoc, Yun Li, who joined the unit from the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry. Thirty years later, Sven – now professor…