Accompanied by coffee and snacks.

Introduction to EPFL and BMI by Carmen Sandi and Hilal Lashuel.

Welcoming remarks by the FutureUp! student organizing committee.

- Nathalie Bovy-vanderLugt: Donders Center for Medical Neuroscience, Radboud University Medical Center (Donders)

- Eva Mikics: Institute of Experimental Medicine, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS/MTA)

- Remy Sadoul: The Grenoble Institute of Neuroscience (GIN)

Presentation 1 (09:30-09:50): Mireia Coll-Tane (Donders, Netherlands)

Presentation 2 (09:50-10:10): Thomas Bolton (EPFL, Switzerland)

Presentation 3 (10:10-10:30): Veronica Munoz Ramirez (GIN, France)

Enjoy a hot drink in a relaxed atmosphere.

• How do we use the PhD time efficiently to prepare for success?

• What is the definition of a successful PhD? How do we define 'success'?

• What type of skills and training are we missing within the current PhD training programmes?

Moderators:
Hilal Lashuel (EPFL, Switzerland)
Nagham Badreddine (GIN, France)

Panelists:
Ossama Khalaf (EPFL, Switzerland)
Laszlo Biro (HAS/MTA, Hungary)
Jemila Houacine (Medicxi, Switzerland)
Marta Moita (Champalimaud Foundation, Portugal)

Presentation 1 (14:00-14:20): Katalin Sviatko (HAS/MTA, Hungary)

Presentation 2 (14:20-14:40): Jane Yi (EPFL, Switzerland)

Presentation 3 (14:40-15:00): Emilia Bosz (HAS/MTA, Hungary)

• What are the career options for neuroscientists upon completion of PhD?

• When is the right time to start thinking about your career options?

• Post-doctoral training; is it necessary for all?

• How to assess, discover and refine your potential and capabilities and align them with your career interests and future goals?

Moderators:
Judith Homberg (Donders, Netherlands)
Stefania Vacaru (Donders, Netherlands)

Panelists:
Brian McCabe (EPFL, Switzerland)
Heribert Watzke (Nestle, Switzerland)
Markus Britschgi (Roche, Switzerland)
Elisa Scariati (UNIGE, Switzerland)

Enjoy a hot drink in a relaxed atmosphere.

(1) One form of age-related macular degeneration, a disease of the retina, up until the year 2000 rendered all patients blind within about six months after their first medical visit. This is the most important blinding disease in older people. We developed the first effective treatment for this disease (VISUDYNE technology), injecting a dye i.v., and activating the dye in the retina with a laser beam. I will describe the disease and the solution, and some of the things that happened during the development. Millions of eyes world-wide have now been saved with this treatment. Currently our technology is mainly used to treat small polyps in the eye, another blinding disease. The clinical development in Lausanne was with the Jules Gonin hospital.

(2) Early stage (carcinoma in situ, or CIS) bladder cancer is a quite aggressive disease, which used to be very difficult to localise and remove. Thus we created a minimally invasive method to detect CIS in the bladder, and remove it, as well as larger cancers, quantitatively under fluorescence. The cancers are made to fluoresce via instillation in the bladder of a substance (HEXVIX) which is selectively converted by the specific enzyme activity of the cancers into a fluorescing molecule, making the cancer easy to detect and to remove. About 50,000 patients are treated world-wide per year by this method. The clinical development in Lausanne was with the CHUV hospital's urology department.

• How do we adapt to the changing landscape of science?

• Open access, transparency, reproducibility, chasing impact factors, authorship, negative data

• What is the role of PhD students – should we try to influence and shape the scientific landscape, or remain as bystanders?

Moderators:
Nathalie Bovy-vanderLugt (Donders, Netherlands)
Firat Altay (EPFL, Switzerland)

Panelists:
Hilal Lashuel (EPFL, Switzerland)
Amy Wu (EPFL, Switzerland)
Galina Glousker (EPFL, Switzerland)
Kirsten Martin (Frontiers, Switzerland)
Luc Henry (EPFL, Switzerland

Enjoy the music and the meal...

Special thanks to Mario Romani (ADSV Communications Officer) for being our DJ!

Presentation 1 (08:30-08:50): Annika Brandt (Donders, Netherlands)

Presentation 2 (08:50-09:10): Laszlo Szente (HAS/MTA, Hungary)

Presentation 3 (09:10-09:30): Xiaochen Zheng (Donders, Netherlands)

• Giving back to the society: Is it an option or an obligation for researchers?

• Science communication: Skills and tools

• How can we as PhD students contribute to increasing awareness about science and promote evidence-based policies?

Moderators:
Eva Mikics (HAS/MTA, Hungary)
Biborka Bruzsik (HAS/MTA, Hungary)

Panelists:
Carmen Sandi (FENS, EPFL, Switzerland)
Luc Patiny (Hackuarium, Switzerland)
Adria LeBoeuf (Catalyst, Switzerland)
Marc Lutz (Swiss Multiple Sclerosis Society, Switzerland)

Enjoy a hot drink in a relaxed atmosphere.

Presentation 1 (11:15-11:35): Victorita Stefania Vacaru (Donders, Netherlands)

Presentation 2 (11:35-11:55): Bibiana Torok (HAS/MTA, Hungary)

Presentation 3 (11:55-12:15): Arzu Guneysu Ozgur (EPFL, Switzerland)

Enjoy a meal.

Living in a group has an adaptive value for a number of reasons, namely when threatened by predators. The neural mechanisms by which animals use social information to make inferences about danger or safety are largely unknown. In this talk I will focus on our experiments aimed at understanding how animals use the behaviour of con-specifics as alarm or safety cues. I first will discuss our findings showing that rats use freezing as an alarm cue, which is sensed through a sudden cessation of movement-evoked sound. Furthermore, we found that for rats to use freezing by others as an alarm cue, they need to learn the association between their own freezing and the threat that caused it. Finally, using a combination of optogenetics and pharmacology we partially identified the circuit involved in this process. In the second part of my talk I will discuss how fruit flies also use movement cues from conspecifics to infer safety. In essence, we developed a paradigm to study the phenomenon of safety in numbers, whereby animals are less threatened the higher the number of individuals in the group. Using this set-up we have determined the safety cues perceived by flies and identified neurons involved. In summary, movements of others constitute essential cues of threat and safety that a wide range of animals use to regulate their defensive behaviours.

A brief presentation by Elias Friman (president of ADSV, EPFL) followed by group work and discussion.

• Is it worth doing a PhD? Pros and cons.

• What are the strategies for better management of work-life balance?

• What are the expectations of the PhD student in the PhD student-supervisor relationship?

• What are the expectations of the principal investigator in the PhD student-supervisor relationship?

• Assessment and critique of the mentorship system

• What are the inbuilt mechanisms for protection in cases of mistreatment, negligence and exploitation of power?

Moderators:
Marta Moita (Champalimaud Foundation, Portugal)
Ayah Khubieh (EPFL, Switzerland)

Preparation time for collaboration challenge proposals.

8min maximum per group: 5min presentation + 3min QA

Reflections and feedback on the symposium.

Discussion on the means by which networking and collaboration could be nourished for the future symposiums.

Enjoy the music and the meal...

Special thanks to Mario Romani (ADSV Communications Officer) for being our DJ!

Depends on the weather.

Please note that this activity is optional, participants willing to join will need to cover their own expenses.