_{From left to right: Larisa Maier and Katrin Wendrich at the LS²}

On 14^th and 15^th February some of our students took part to the LS² annual meeting on the subject of "Cell biology from tissue to nucleus". With 31 national & international speakers (>50% women), the programme was very insightful. Katrin Wendrich and Larisa Maier from our Department won prizes for their posters. 

Ethics and scientific responsability
Katrin Wendrich presented a poster about her work on sleep of mice with a dysfunctional circadian clock. It won the Swiss 3R Competence Center Poster Prize. The Swiss 3R Competence Centre (3RCC) promotes the 3Rs principle (reduction, refinement and replacement of animal experimentation) in Switzerland and facilitates its implementation in life sciences, focusing on research, education and communication. Katrin refined existing methodologies and reduced the impact of her experimentation on the animal’s well-being. Precisely, she uses the non-invasive PiezoSleep system to record if the mice are awake or asleep. Also, for sleep deprivation she uses the “Gentle Handling Method” instead of automated sleep deprivation systems like rotating discs. She prevents her mice from sleeping by enriching their environment with objects which they can explore (like cotton swabs) and by interacting with her on a completely voluntary and stress-free basis. 

Developing sciences communication skills
Larisa Maier was awarded “The Swiss Young Cell Biologist of the Year”, by the LS² section Molecular and Cellular Biosciences to the best Cell Biology poster. Her research combine different techniques to characterize the physiology and transcriptomics of taste sensory cells in fruit fly larvae, with possible insights for a better understanding of taste sensory coding principles in nature. The poster exemplifies the techniques used with nice visualization and a good balance of text and figures. Larisa won a free registration to the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) Meeting 2019, Dec 7-11, 2019, Washington DC and a financial participation for the travel to the meeting.

Life Sciences Switzerland (LS²) is the society that supports researchers by organising events and workshops, distributes young investigator travel grants, reaches out to the public and its partner societies, and provides a network to foster scientific exchange. LS² is the largest Life Sciences Society in Switzerland today. It represents about 1200 individuals, a coalition of independent member and affiliated societies.