5th BIGS Clinical and Population Science Student Symposium

20/10/2020 8:00 pm

On October 19th and 20th 2020, about 30 PhD students of the BIGS Clinical and Population Science gathered for this year’s student symposium. Unlike in previous years, the event took place virtually via Zoom due to the Corona pandemic. Nevertheless, a vivid scientific exchange between the participants developed during four thematic sessions with selected talks and two poster sessions. Three keynote lectures by Dr. Nicole Soranzo, Dr. Denes Stefler and Dr. Nahid Zokaei/Giedrė Čepukaitytė provided inspiring perspectives on current genetic, clinical and epidemiological research. The program was further enriched by a short workshop on presentation skills by Dr. Oliver Hauss. As a networking opportunity, an online pub quiz was organized.

This year’s prize for the best talk was awarded to Santiago Estrada with a presentation on “Automated Olfactory Bulb Segmentation on High Resolution T2 MRI using Convolutational Neural Networks”. The prize for best poster was awarded to Nersi Alaeddin. He presented on the “Prevalence and Determinants of Over- and Undertreating Hypertension and Cholesterol Levels in the Rhineland Study”. Thomas Welchowski was honored with the BIGS Clinical and Population Science Thesis Award for the best doctoral thesis of 2019.

Finally, we would like to welcome our two new Student Council representatives, Friederike David and Anna Siewert. Both are working at the Institute of Human Genetics. At the same time, we bid farewell to Annabell Coors and Anna Sommer, who have stepped down as student representatives.

Congratulations to the winners and many thanks to all who contributed to the event! We are looking forward to next year’s retreat and hope to see you soon again face-to-face!

Best wishes,

Your CPS student representatives,
Fabienne, Anna, Friederike & Elvire