Symposium for Biology Students in Europe has a long-standing history, with hundreds of young aspiring biologists participating in annual editions over 25 years. We have collected some of their stories on this page.
Ioanna Stefani, a PhD student from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, who was also a volunteer helper in 2015 and a participant from 2016 on, shares her vision of SymBioSE.
“A less competitive environment of scientists from many disciplines that share common interests, collaborate and help each other overcome their problems. Does this seem realistic or utopian to you? Join us next summer to see where you’ll see yourself standing on these topics.”
Elmedina Nuka, Biology student from the University of Pristina, Kosovo, believes that SymBioSE can broaden your horizons and bring new perspectives to your mindset.
“Meeting new people and hearing their stories can have such a big positive impact in the decisions you’ll take later (even if you barely notice this at first). I’m so happy that students have an opportunity like SymBioSE and would highly recommend it to every biologist.”
Dr. Axel Hochstetter, the researcher at the University of Glasgow, UK, has been a participant of SymBioSE since 2012. He shares the story of an international, interdisciplinary collaboration that started at one of the coffee breaks.
“We started to set up our interdisciplinary collaboration, managed to acquire funding and are right now publishing our first joint publication on the project in a special issue.
Without SymBioSE, I still would believe that it would never be possible for me to study how pathogens can invade our brains.”
Mykyta Osadchyi (he/him), a bachelor student from the University of Maria Curie-Skłodowska in Lublin, Poland, shares with us his experience from SymBioSE 2022 in Germany.