Double success at the EMBL Chemical Biology Conference
Thomas Bakkum en Tom van der Wel, two PhD candidates from the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, have both won poster prizes at the EMBL Chemical Biology Conference 2018 in Heidelberg.
The last weekend in August marked the start of the 10-year anniversary edition of the EMBL Chemical Biology Conference in Heidelberg. Since its inception, this conference has been the showcase of European chemical biology. This status was again reflected this year with the keynote speakers representing the forefront of the field: Stuart Schreiber, David Liu, Carsten Schultz and Peng Chen.
The conference also proved popular amongst students, with nearly 300 posters being presented, displaying the kaleidoscopic diversity of the field. This makes it all the more impressive that not one, but two poster awards were won by LIC PhD candidates. Thomas Bakkum, a second year PhD student from the Van Kasteren Group (Bio-organic Synthesis) received the prize for his poster on his recent research into host-pathogen interactions using advanced microscopy techniques. Tom van der Wel, a fourth year PhD student from the Van der Stelt Group (Molecular Physiology) was awarded the other prize for his research combining CRISP-CAS9 with covalent inhibitor design in drug target discovery.