CEPLAS/ IPK Summer School 2024
Monastery and science - this combination apparently works very well. After the premiere in May 2022 in Steinfeld Monastery (North Rhine-Westphalia), more than 40 young scientists from CEPLAS and the IPK Leibniz Institute met this week in Drübeck in the Harz Mountains for the second joint International Summer School. Where Benedictine nuns once lived according to the rules of St. Benedict of Nursia and worked in the kitchen, garden and fields after early mass, everything revolved around the topic of “Translational Plant Biodiversity Research” for five days in ten sessions and several workshops.
The organizers were not only able to attract scientists from CEPLAS and IPK for the lectures at Drübeck Monastery, but also from many international research institutions, including many European countries as well as Kenya and Malaysia. The program also included a number of workshops on very practical topics, such as scientific writing, science communication and networking.
“On the one hand, we wanted to get young people interested in plant research and impart a lot of specialist knowledge, but on the other hand we also wanted to present our institutions - CEPLAS and IPK - and highlight career options there,” says postdoctoral researcher Laura Armbruster (UoC). She was a participant herself at the last summer school and was now part of the organizing team, which also included IPK event manager Lisa Schlehuber.
It was important to the organizing team that the groups were well mixed. “We had coins in different colors for this. And before lunch, everyone had to draw a coin and sit down at the table with the respective color,” reports Laura Armbruster. She shared the management of the ten sessions with Stanislav Kopriva (University of Cologne), Sebastian Samwald (Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne) and Gabriel Ragazzo (IPK).
“The keynote lectures were given by top-class speakers from very different fields of knowledge, including CRISPR-Cas techniques, plant-microbiome interaction, plant nutrition, cytogenetics and structural proteomics,” reports Gabriel Ragazzo, Head of the PhD Student Board at IPK and the Leibniz PhD Network. “The young researchers had the opportunity to present their respective work in talks or with posters. And the feedback we received was very positive.”
CEPLAS and the IPK have been working together successfully for years to further develop translational biodiversity research. This involves fundamental research into biological phenomena, but also application-oriented innovations. CEPLAS and IPK also founded TRANSCEND, an alliance for innovative plant sciences, in 2023. “And the International Summer School is a great opportunity to get young scientists excited about our research and to build international networks at the same time,” explains Stanislav Kopriva, Scientific Director of the event. “It's just fun to see people discussing science until late in the evening, slowly losing their shyness and talking freely with the PIs.”
The Summer School concluded with a trip to the IPK. During guided tours, all participants were given an insight into the gene bank and the PhenoSphere, the Institute's two most important research infrastructures. In the gene bank, more than 150,000 samples of crops such as cereals and pulses are not only preserved at minus 18 degrees, but are also available to researchers. And in the PhenoSphere, plants grow under field-like conditions in containers and in root boxes, known as rhizotrons. In this globally unique facility, relevant environmental factors such as light, temperature, CO2 content and wind can be adjusted in a controlled and reproducible manner and the plants can be exposed to a wide range of climate and stress scenarios.
And what happens next? “I believe that the Summer School was a complete success and achieved its goals with excellence,” says Gabriel Ragazzo. His colleague Laura Armbruster from the organization team was also extremely satisfied. “People were still fully engaged late into the evening during the poster presentations, which really impressed me and exceeded my high expectations.” So it's no surprise that the format is to be continued in 2026. And until then, there is sure to be another beautiful monastery.
(Text: Christian Schafmeister, IPK)