To bring together students and young researchers in the molecular life sciences from all over Europe, the Junior Sections of the ÖGMBT (Austria), HDBMB (Croatia), CSBMB (Czech Republic), GBM (Germany), SIB (Italy), NVBMB (the Netherlands), SEBBM (Spain), the Biochemical Society (UK), have collaborated with FEBS to establish an initiative: the FEB Junior Section. We want to encourage Junior Sections of other national Societies to join us, and for national Societies without a formal junior section, to consider setting one up (we have written a post with ideas for how to do this).

As an initiative, we want to develop joint activities and share resources, as well as open doors for young European scientists to opportunities outside their home countries by providing the relevant contacts and fostering communication within the network. Importantly, this emerging platform is still very dynamic and lives on the ideas that you and your society’s members are all welcome to contribute.

Join us!

To support the initiative, FEBS has created an open Room for the FEBS Junior Section as a platform for exchange and collaboration within the FEBS Network. All young members from the FEBS societies are welcome to sign up to the FEBS Network and become a member of the Room using the following link: https://network.febs.org/users/sign_up?campaign_key=Junior+Sections+of+FEBS+Societies+Members+Room-aab2c6

Planned and organized events

We organize events of interest to students and young researchers in the molecular life sciences across Europe. We delivered a series of monthly talks in 2022 (see links below), alternating academic and career topics, each organized by a Junior Section from a different country. We are planning more activities for 2023 (see below).  Get in touch if you have a suggestion for an activity and please help us share our activities with your peers.

FEBS Junior Section Talk Series 2023:

13 April 2023

Speaker: TBC
Topic: TBC
Time: 13 April 2023, 19:00 (CET)
Information/Registration: More details and the link to register will be available soon.

19 January 2023. Academic talk. Organized by Junior-GBM (the Junior Section of the German Society, GBM). An academic talk by Dr. Jonas Schlüter, from New York University, USA, on “Evolutionary Medicine for the Microbiome, or how to turn the gut microbiome into a novel therapeutic target". This talk was not recorded.

9 February 2023. Careers talk. Organized  by Biochemistry in Motion (BeM)/SEBBM Junior Consuls, the junior section of the Spanish Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. A careers talk by Dr. Rodrigo Hernando Llorente, founder and CEO of "Libertad Con Ciencia", in Spain, on “How to land your ideal job in the Industry". Watch the recording of this talk.

9 March 2023. Careers talk. Organized by the FEBS Junior Section. A careers talk by the Green Laboratory Work initiative on "The Science of Sustainability: How a Sustainable Mindset Can Enhance Your Research & Life". Watch the recording of this talk.

FEBS Junior Section Talk Series 2022:

13 January 2022. Academic. Organized by Junior-GBM (the Junior Section of the German Society, GBM). An academic talk by Dr Andreas Schlundt, from Goethe University Frankfurt, on “The roles of sequence, structure and dynamics for specific RNA-recognition by proteins". Watch the recording of the talk (edited to remove unpublished data).

10 February 2022. Careers. Organized by SEBBM Junior Consuls (the Junior Section of the Spanish Society, SEBBM). A careers talk by Prof. Andreas Hougaard Laustsen, from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), on “Bridging academia and bioentrepreneurship”. Watch the recording of the talk.

10 March 2022.  Academic. Organized by Young NVBMB (the Junior Section of the Dutch Society, NVBMB). An academic talk by Dr Tessa Sinnige, from Utrecht University, on “Elucidating the molecular mechanisms of protein aggregation in C. elegans as a living model system”. Watch the recording of the talk.

14 April 2022. Careers. Organized by HDBMB Young Scientists' Forum (the Junior Section of the Croatian Society, HDBMB). A careers talk by Prof. Igor Stagljar, University of Toronto, Canada, on success in the life sciences, with a focus on his work developing high-throughput technologies to facilitate the study of the protein-protein interactions of human membrane proteins involved in cancer. Watch a recording of the talk.

12 May 2022. Academic. Organized by ÖGMBT/YLSA (the Junior Section of the Austrian Society. ÖGMBT). An academic talk by Prof. Florian Rüker, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, on circumventing immunization by in vitro directed evolution and selection of human antibodies from large surface display libraries. The recording of this talk was only available online until the end of September 2022.

9 June 2022. Careers. Organized by SIB Sezione Giovani (the Junior Section of the Italian Society, SIB). A careers talk by Prof. Loredano Pollegioni, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, Italy, on the research path that led D-Serine from unnatural (and negligible) amino acid to (main) neuromodulator involved in relevant human pathologies. This talk was not recorded.

21 July 2022. Academic. Organized by SEBBM Junior Consuls (the Junior Section of the Spanish Society, SEBBM) and the student association Biochemistry in Movement. An academic talk by Prof. Mara Dierssen, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Barcelona, Spain, on the emerging scenario of epigenetic regulation in Down syndrome. The recording of this talk is not available.

11 August 2022. Careers. Organized  by Junior-GBM (the Junior Section of the German Society, GBM). A careers talk, by Dr. Anna McConnell, Otto-Diels-Institute, University of Kiel, Germany, on how she combined her research with supporting equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in supramolecular chemistry. This talk was not recorded.

8 September 2022. Academic. Organized by HDBMB Young Scientists' Forum (the Junior Section of the Croatian Society, HDBMB). An academic talk by Dr. Iva Tolic, Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia, on the mechanobiology of mitosis and its role in mitotic fidelity. Watch a recording of the talk.

13 October 2022. Careers. Organized by Young NVBMB (the Junior Section of the Dutch Society, NVBMB). A careers talk by Dr. Marco de Boer, Predica Diagnostics, the Netherlands, on the early steps of entrepreneurship. Watch a recording of this talk.

10 November 2022. Academic. Organized by SIB Sezione Giovani (the Junior Section of the Italian Society, SIB). An academic talk by Prof. Federico Fornerisa, Armenise-Harvard Laboratory of Structural Biology, University of Pavia, Italy, on the molecular diversity of collagen lysine post-translational modification enzymes. Watch a recording of the talk.

8 December 2022. Careers. Organized by ÖGMBT/YLSA (the Junior Section of the Austrian Society ÖGMBT). A careers talk by Dr. Boton Cseh, Vienna, on career mobility and alternative options for researchers. The recording of this talk is not available.

Talks delivered in 2021:

We delivered two events in 2021, listed below.

1) Working at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK. With Dr Roser Vento-Tormo, Group Leader on Cellular Genetics at the Sanger. This event took place on the 19 October 2021.

2) The AlphaFold Database, co-developed by DeepMind and EMBL-EBI. With Prof. Gerard Kleywegt and Dr Sameer Velankar, at EMBL-EBI. You can watch a recording of the webinar here. This event took place on the 26 October 2021.

Spread the word!

Please share this post with your FEBS Constituent Society to help promote the exchange between young scientists across Europe. Thank you!