News archive 2010
December 2010: DK X-mas walk
Students met for a walk through the seasonally decorated inner city.
November 2010: SAB meeting
While our more senior students gave full presentations for the SAB (Scientific Advisory Board) meeting of PopGen Vienna, our 1st year students got valuable first feedback on their projects during an informal Wine & Cheese session to meet the SAB members.
October 2010: PhD retreat
The first PopGen Vienna retreat was organised in the hut village on top of Feuerkogel in Upper Austria. PhD students, faculty and associated groups met for a weekend of talks, networking and hiking.
October 2010: Introductory course
The yearly Population Genetics Introductory Course for PhD students took place in October and covered relevant basic concepts in population genetics, Drosophila genetics, statistics and bioinformatics. Our students also had the opportunity to attend the Evolutionary Genetics Workshop at IST Austria.
October 2010: Visiting scientist
Until the end of 2010, Dr. Chantal Dauphin-Villemant (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Paris 6) was hosted by the graduate school as a visiting researcher in the Flatt group.
In her research, Dr. Dauphin-Villemant investigates the biogenesis and endocrine function of steroid hormones; in both insects and vertebrates, steroid hormones play major roles in the control of development, reproduction, and aging. However, although steroid signaling is well conserved throughout evolution, the precise biosynthetic pathway that leads to insect steroids is still incompletely understood.
One of Dr. Dauphin-Villemant's major aims is to elucidate this metabolic pathway and to better understand the evolution of steroids. Her group has used biochemical approaches to measure insect steroid hormones with great sensitivity and has also been involved in the characterization of several enzymatic steps of this pathway. The insights from this work have improved the tools to understand the function of these hormones.
In collaboration with Thomas Flatt’s team, Chantal Dauphin-Villemant is presently interested in characterizing the steroidogenic function of Drosophila ovaries and in unravelling how ecdysteroid production affects longevity in female fruit flies.
September 2010: 1st DK Welcome Event
Social kick-off: Students met for a hike with Heurigen in the vineyards above Vienna
July 2010: DK start date - 2010 selection completed
More than 100 applicants followed this year's call for PhD positions. Interviews were offered to 10% of the most highly qualified candidates. 80% of the candidates accepted the offered positions and we happily welcome them to our program in September!
