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10. Nov. 2022
Invitation to the CEITEC CF DAY MEETING
State-of-the-art research infrastructures and cutting-edge scientific discoveries go hand in hand. Since its foundation, CEITEC Masaryk University (MU) has placed great emphasis on scouting emerging technologies and has been striving to add to its instrument portfolio novel pieces that are desired even by western European institutions. The core facility heads regularly reflect on what other instruments would help their scientific clientele stay on the forefront of global science. These unique technologies don´t serve only CEITEC scientists, but are available to practically anyone thanks to Open Access mode.
"In the field of life sciences, there is only a very small percentage of publications that would have been produced without the use of the instrumentation. The most advanced instruments in each field are united under one technological umbrella, which is the core facility. The fact that scientists can use the services of core facilities without having to acquire their own instrumentation and without having to learn how to use it is a huge advantage that allows scientists to focus on their own research. In addition, each facility has core facility experts who are important associates of the scientists because they advise them on setting up the instruments as well as on analysing and interpreting the measured data," explains Katerina Hoskova, who takes care of the core facilities at CEITEC MU.
Every year, the core facility heads of CEITEC MU organise a special conference for their current and potential users, where they present the hottest technological innovations and what measurements they can be used for. Each core facility head will present the portfolio of their services, the newest instruments and the types of training they will offer to their users in the coming year. This special conference, called CF DAY MEETING, is open to the global scientific community and attracts in particular scientists-innovators who like to experiment with completely new methods or prefer to combine several different methods.
"This is the second edition of the event, which we want to organize regularly and inform users about what is new in the core facilities, what new instruments have been acquired, what services we are offering, how to improve our mutual collaboration to maximize the potential for both parties and last but not least to have the opportunity to meet our users and discuss new potential research directions to which the care facilities can further contribute," explains core facilities manager Katerina Hoskova.
Another great advantage is that conference participants can meet experts of all technologies that CEITEC offers in one single day. Scientists will have the opportunity to get an overview of the available scientific methods, their potential and their limits. This conference is also an ideal place for students and PhD students from life science and biomedical disciplines who are not yet very familiar with research technologies but would like to get a comprehensive overview.
CEITEC's shared laboratories provide a wide range of services in one place, covering structural biology methods such as cryo-electron microscopy, NMR spectroscopy, crystallography, atomic force microscopy and mass spectrometry. There are also laboratories with imaging methods such as confocal microscopy and advanced light-sheet microscopy or super-resolution systems. For biomedical scientists, CEITEC offers magnetic resonance imaging and other electro-physiological equipment, mainly focused on neuroscience research. For plant scientists, there is an extensive infrastructure of greenhouses and growth chambers. Last but not least, CEITEC MU has a super modern sequencing laboratory and in addition offers bioinformatic analysis of research data.
The CF DAY MEETING will take place this year on 22 November from 10.00 to 16.00 at CEITEC MU in Brno, Bohunice. Scientists from outside Brno can participate online via Zoom. Participation in this event is free of charge, but participants are required to register. Each core facility has its own time slot and it is possible to participate only in selected slots according to the research interest. If you don't know which core facility to choose, you can watch short videos of each core facility before the conference to help you to navigate through the wide range of services. All videos are available on the CF DAY MEETING website.
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