News / 31 July 2017
EMBL alumnus Dr Seán O’Donoghue with the Garvan Institute Chief Scientific Officer Dr Marie Dziadek and Group Leader Dr Samantha Oakes at the alumni event.

“Ask a big question,” EMBL alumnus Dr Seán O’Donoghue advises.

“I mean what’s the point of being involved in our game, as hard as we work, if you’re working on something tepid?”

This idea of pursuing ambitious research was the recurring theme of the speakers who presented at the first alumni event to be held by the EMBL in Australia.

It appeared to be a meeting of the like-minded as a number of the 74 EMBL alumni now living in Australia, as well as their colleagues and networks, congregated at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney on 9 June.

EMBL alumna Dr Mirana Ramialison, now at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, said she continues to live by the ethos she learned as a young PhD student at the EMBL: “Dream big, dream crazy, dream with other people”.

Not only did the event provide the rare opportunity to network with fellow EMBL alumni now spread across the country, but the audience was also treated to a preview of the animations that would soon feature at VIZBI 2017, the 8th international conference on Visualising Biological Data.

Another alumni event will be held in Brisbane in 2019, with the aim of strengthening ties and highlighting collaboration and resource-sharing opportunities between the EMBL, its alumni and networks in Australia.

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