Last week (16th and 17th March 2023) our ESRs Shannon Amy Jenkins and Alina Meyer went to Brussels to participate in the Science is Wonderful! 2023 science fair. And what a wonderful time they had!Students from all over Europe travelled to the event, hosted by Maison de la Poste, which included over 100 MSCA researchers from all over the globe. Students were able to participate in hands-on-experiments, games and quizzes. Our own stall included a fun activity, where students were challenged to piece together a puzzle which demonstrated how drug repurposing works. They were asked to search through a ball pit to find all of the correct pieces, and put them together to identify all of the...

Beginning a PhD is a daunting experience. Thrown into the deep end, equipped with nothing but enthusiasm and a penchant for research, students must quickly adapt to the realities of their new life. For the DRUGtrain ESRs, this also meant packing up and moving to a new country where we were given the exciting opportunity to integrate ourselves in the culture and language of our host countries. As we prepared ourselves to tackle the behemoth that is a doctoral degree, we faced the additional challenge of adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic and our host countries’ restrictions. From delayed shipments to reduced lab capacities to online-only meetings, it would be fair to say we were excited to...