March 30th, 2024
The Second School of the SupraLife Project entitled “Bioinspired Supramolecular Self-Assemblies” was held at the Auditorium Renato Araújo within the University of Aveiro’s Central and Rectorate Building, in Aveiro, Portugal, from 10-15th March 2024.
This event included a strong scientific program, from 10-12th March, featuring plenary lectures by world-renowned scientists from ten European countries. The talks focused on topics including bioinspired polymers; functional supramolecular self-assemblies; adaptive, dynamic, responsive and interactive soft materials and molecular systems; compartmentalized structures; life-like systems; and their use in nanomedicine, diagnostics, theranostics, biosensing, drug/therapeutics delivery, soft robotics, tissue engineering or regenerative medicine.
In addition, the scientific program included oral and poster presentations by students and early-career scientists, providing them with the opportunity to showcase their scientific research work and engage in scientific dialogue and discussions with the plenary speakers and peers, fostering the exchange of ideas and collaborative efforts. Awards were given top best oral communication (Vera Sousa, University of Aveiro, Portugal), sponsored by Metatissue, a spin-off company of the University of Aveiro, and to the best three posters (Cathrine Meyer, Aarhus University, Denmark; Margarida Sacramento, University of Aveiro, Portugal; Joana Calvário, ITQB-NOVA, Portugal), sponsored by the Journal of Materials Chemistry B, Materials Advances e Biomaterials Science of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
The scientific program also included an activity entitled ‘Meet the Mentor’ in which the plenary speakers were invited to share their career path and research experiences, as well as to interact with the young scientists and answer their curiosities in an informal environment over the lunch time.
Furthermore, the Second School included a soft transferable skills’ training program, from 13-15th March, which aimed at advancing the professional development and broadening the career perspectives of students and early-career scientists, regardless of their academic background and research domain. The program featured invited speakers, experts and highly skilled professionals covering a wide range of topics, including diverse career routes, career development, science publishing and ethics, mental health and imposter phenomenon, diversity, equity and inclusion in science, open science, project management, data management, community building for scientists, and science innovation.
This event was the second school of the EU-funded Twinning project SUPRALIFE which commenced on January 1st, 2023. The project is coordinated by the University of Aveiro (UAVR, Portugal) and counts on the Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands), the University of Bordeaux (France) and its affiliated entities Polytechnic Institute of Bordeaux (Bordeaux INP) and French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) as consortium partners.
More information about the Second School, SUPRALIFE project and upcoming training activities can be found here: https://www.supralife.eu/secondschool; https://www.supralife.eu.
