SyMBaD PhD students follow an outstanding training program

They participate to
• Project-oriented research in academic laboratories in collaboration with private companies
• Local training activities in complementary skills
• Annual Meetings (PhD Progress report seminars, seminars and workshops on R&D organised by the private companies, workshop on synaptopathies with invited clinicians, …)
• Synapse Summer Schools
• 9 Workshops in advanced methods of Neurosciences
Associated PhD students, hired by local partners may participate to

Annual meetings
October 2010: Bordeaux (official kick-off meeting) - Presentation of the projects
October 2011: Balatonfured (Budapest, Hungary) – Presentation by each ESRs of their results- Mid-Term review meeting.
November 2012: Alicante-Presentation by each ESRs of their results-Workshops on synaptopaties.
October 2013: Stresa (final meeting). Presentation by each ESRs of their results and discussion.

Four annual meetings were held in October 2010 (St Emilion, France), October 2011 (Balatonfured, Hungary), November 2012 (Alicante, Spain) and October 2013 (Stresa, Italy)

The kick-off meeting allowed collecting all the members of the network, discussing the status on recruitment and training activities and officially starting the project implementation.

The second annual meeting comprised presentation of progress report by all the ESRs and the associated students as well as the mid-term review meeting in presence of the REA officer. The annual meeting was combined with the 3rd European Synapse meeting, providing an invaluable opportunity for ESRs to attend a high profile international meeting. The SyMBaD network contributed to fund it.

The third annual meeting in Alicante comprised initially some workshops on synaptopaties an R&D, organized by pharmaceutical companies and research institutes (Boehringer, Alzheimer's Research UK and two SyMBaD private partners: GSK and Aptuit). The scientific presentations by all the ESRs and the associate students followed in front of supervisors. Moreover parallel meetings of all the SAPs 'statued' on the progress of the student in terms of training and research.

The last SyMBaD annual meeting took place in Stresa. In prevision of their PhD defence, all the ESRs presented their research followed by a discussion in plenary session, in front of all the participants. Unfortunately it was not possible to organize the European Synaptic meeting closely in order for the SyMBaD fellows to attend easily both the events. Anyway they had the opportunity to attend it in Bordeaux on August 28th-30th, 2013.

Local and network-wide training activities.

Annual meetings (see above)

Synapse Summer Schools
The 5th and 6th editions of the European Synapse Summer School were coordinated with the FENS and IBRO institutions and were organised at the University of Bordeaux in September 2011, from the 5th to the 23th, and September 2013, from the 9th to the 27th.

The schools were granted by the SyMBaD program, the FENS-IBRO and the Bordeaux Neuroscience Federation. The school combined lectures by renowned scientists with methodological training, which were achieved by guiding the students through hands-on experiments within the frame of short scientific projects. Workshops in imaging techniques were also proposed by using the large equipment of Bordeaux Imaging Center (www.bic.u-bordeaux.fr). The theoretical lectures were open to all the PhD students/young post-doc from the university of Bordeaux and beyond, including students from the SyMBaD network. Moreover some of them attended the school in 2013 as instructors.

For further information, please look at the website:
www.escube.u-bordeaux.fr

Workshops
Nine workshops in specific methods were programmed and organised by one of the academic partners.

Non-SyMBaD PhD students were welcomed to participate.

Seven workshops took place, according to the calendar:
I – Milan, April 18th-21st, 2011 - Cell-permeable peptides: a tool to study synaptic protein complexes in physiology and pathology.
II and III – Bristol, June 21st-24th, 2011 - Slice Culture, Viral Transduction and Plasticity - Viruses for the efficient expression of proteins in neurons in culture, slices and in vivo.
IV – Goettingen, July 26th- 28th, 2011 - 3D High Pressure Freeze Electron Microscopy. This workshop included a one-day symposium entitled “High pressure freeze electron microscopy on its way to correlative microscopy and 4D EM”.
All the workshops were a great success and very stimulating. In total 34 students from the SyMBaD network and 36 external invited researchers attended them.
V – Milan, March 19th-22nd, 2012 - 2D-gel analysis and mass spectrometry to detect changes in synaptic proteins expression. ESRs attending the event: 9. External speakers and teachers: 12.
VI – Geneva, July 10th-13th, 2012 – Workshop on writing, joint to the meeting Synaptic basis of diseases – Translating synaptic physiology into medical applications. ESRs attending the event: 14. External speakers and teachers: 30.
VII – Bordeaux, November 20th-23rd, 2012 – Imaging techniques – From basics to practice. ESRs attending the event: 6. External speakers and teachers: 11.

Program of the workshops

W1 downloading

W2 and W3 downloading

W4 downloading

W4 symposium downloading

W5 downloading
W5 Poster flyer final

W 6 downloading
W6 poster

W7 downloading