Training

With the goal to educate the next generation of scientists with expertise in antimicrobial resistance, the BREAKthrough project offers its 11 doctoral candidates (DCs) a varied training programme.

In the 17 training modules listed below, DCs will acquire 1) multidisciplinary research skills in biology and chemical biology, 2) career skills and business processes, and 3) personal development skills. The programme combines local and network-wide activities shared between academia and industry through secondments. 

Science and technology

  • Biological membranes, lipid and protein dynamics
  • Functional reconstitution of membranes and membrane proteins
  • Imaging techniques to probe the properties of biological membranes
  • Overview of the most advanced fluorescence imaging techniques
  • Fluorescence microscopy techniques and data analysis
  • Quantitative methods
  • Image processing techniques
  • Planning and execution of high-throughput chemical screening experiments
  • Screening methods for hit identification and lead optimisation
  • Protein structure, computational and experimental techniques to investigate protein structure
  • Bioanalytical methods for measurements of protein structure and for determining structural constraints
  • RNA-Seq and Ribosome profiling technique (generating data, bioinformatic analysis, public data resources)
  • Measuring the rate of transcription/translation, RNA levels, and to detect which open reading frames are being translated in protein.
  • Detecting ribosome pauses

Business and industry

  • Business plan development
  • Financial aspects of business development
  • Go/no-go decisions
  • International/national laws
  • Introduction to basic concepts and definitions of Intellectual Property (IP) and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
  • Overview of existing practices and processes related to IP management
  • Career talks of invited speakers from different sectors
  • Round table for DC’s questions and discussions
  • Mock interviews
  • Contribute to wikiscience
  • Science Slam
  • Membership of national scientific communities
  • Writing a proposal for an EMBO or FEBS grant
  • Writing a proposal for a (inter)national grant
  • Conceptualise a crowdfunding activity

Transferable and generic skills

  • First step in career planning
  • Help DCs to organise their PhD in structured manner
  • Responsibilities during the project
  • Career Development Plan
  • Codes of Conduct
  • Misbehaviours
  • Authorship & Plagiarism
  • Replicability
  • Transparency
  • Good supervision and good PhD
  • Provide methods and tools to manage DC projects
  • Structure, monitor and control
  • Risks and mitigating measures (contingency plan)
  • Mastering a drawing and a graphical program
  • Figures in academic (Open Access) publishing
  • Learn to create effective, visually appealing and informative figures for publications and posters
  • Principles and practice of the various modes and forms of scientific communication including scientific papers, technical reports, and presentations
  • Story development in scientific writing
  • Key steps and ingredients for effective scientific communication
  • Metadata handling
  • Organisation of Labjournals according to pharmaceutical standards
  • Managing data as a valuable resource