Spanish Tortilla for the flatworms
All parts of the course were taught by Spanish native speakers from the MDC. Dr. Jordi Solana Garcia from the Rajewsky group, Dr. Veronica Lombardo from the Seyfried group, Dr. Daniel Perez Hernandez from the Mass spectrometry facility, Dr. Jorge Esparza Gordillo from the Lee group, Ruth Pareja Alcaraz and Dr. Rosa Planells-Cases from the Jentsch group and Rainer Leben from the purchase department made the course possible.
The topics of the one-day-course were “omics” technologies. Omics technologies are key technologies in modern life science research. Genomics, metabolomics or proteomics can be used to map and analyze genomes, metabolites or proteins in a cell.
Also on the program of the teacher course were experiments with the animal model Zebrafish, a tour of the mass spec facility and a visit to the life sciences learning lab.
The aim of the MDC-Program “Labor trifft Lehrer” is to give teachers access to the current methods and topics in the life sciences. In the program, the teachers do not only learn about recent developments, but also reflect on and discuss their societal and ethical implications. As much as possible the content is taught hands-on. That way, the participants can have a realistic insight into the daily life of scientists. Christina Violán, one of the participants of the “Spanish course”, was enthusiastic about the high quality of the course: “This is by far the best continued professional development course I attended in the last years. What I particularly liked, was to get insight in the very latest research results”.
The program director, Dr. Luiza Bengtsson is thrilled about the positive feedback from the participants of the first non-German teacher-training course. “The course was a success. There are lots of bilingual schools in Berlin. I can imagine organizing courses in English, Russian or Italian in the future”, she said. “That way, we can offer a platform for science communication also for our non-German speaking community at the MDC.” Luiza Bengtsson adds: “and besides that, it could be clearly seen and felt how happy the scientists were to talk about their work in their mother tongue. This was a win-win situation for all involved.”
