On the 13th of May, part of the CTGCT team attended BioFair 5.0 the largest career event for students in the field of life sciences in Slovenia, organized by the non-profit student association BEST Ljubljana at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana. During the event our colleagues Vesna and Rodrigo represented the National Institute of Chemistry and the CTGCT.
The aim of the event was to introduce students in Slovenia to some of the most relevant companies in the field of life sciences like, Novartis, Lek, Sartorius BIA Separations and public entities like the Slovenian Armed Forces, the Agricultural Institute of Slovenia and us, among many others. The students had the opportunity to know more about the potential careers that could be done at such institutions and what kind of qualifications and skills are the most important. We help them with questions related to doing student work, internships or being employed in the National Institute of Chemistry and in particular the roles we are looking for at the CTGCT.
For some students, we introduced them to the CTGCT as a centre and our mission in the project to help develop new gene and cell therapies for cancer and rare diseases in Slovenia. Students were interested in learning more about the profiles we will be looking for in the future and what kind of skills are important for them to develop before joining a team like the CTGCT. We also had the opportunity to introduce them to the GeneH project, that is focused on accelerating this process, in particular for gene therapies, by involving partners from industry, hospitals, academia, policy makers and patient advocacy groups.
During the event some of the companies also held quick 10-minute-interviews and the Slovenian Armed Forces also made a demonstration of how they work when collecting samples to be analyzed with their portable biological laboratory.
Additionally, a round table was organized as the grand finale to the Biofair 5.0. The round table was titled “Rare Genetic Diseases – Challenges of Modern Medicine”, which also took place at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, had our colleague Gregor (head of the 3TO) discuss about this topic and answer questions from the public related the problems related to developing therapies for rare diseases and the kind of profiles that are necessary in Slovenia to become more competitive in the European environment in this particular field.
Finally, we want to thank the team of BEST Ljubljana for inviting us to participate in the event and also gives us the opportunity to meet the next generation of scientists that will be involved in the development of gene and cell therapies.
