NEWS Last week, on the 11th of September, a whole-day event was dedicated to celebrating the official opening of the most northern SciLifelab’s national site – in Umeå.
The support we can offer, from sample preparation to data analysis, makes Umeå Site unique
“SciLifeLab Umeå can offer local and national users access to the state-of-the-art infrastructure in the areas of Genomics, Metabolomics, Imaging and Molecular Structure, Chemical Biology, Diagnostics, and Bioinformatics. Dedicated research infrastructure staff support students and researchers to learn and use new methods. The support we can offer, from sample preparation to data analysis, makes Umeå Site unique,” commented Linda Sandblad, Director of SciLifeLab Site Umeå and Umeå Centre for Electron Microscopy.
The SciLifeLab Day Umeå opened an introduction to the Life Science landscape and infrastructures in Umeå by Katrine Riklund, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Umeå University. Then, SciLifeLab Umeå infrastructures presented their platforms and, more specifically, the diversity of services they can offer to support opportunities for conducting world-class life science research in Umeå. The session ended with guided tours to different facilities.
Richard Palmqvist presents the Clinical Genomics infrastructure at the SciLifeLab Day Umeå
ImageAnna ShevtsovaOver lunch, the three SciLifeLab capabilities, Planetary Biology, Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness, and Precision Medicine, held their sessions with talks, panel or group discussions, fostering the exchange of knowledge and finding inspiration for new collaborations.
SciLifeLab director Olli Kallioniemi hands solemnly over a SciLifeLab sign to the Umeå Site director, Linda Sandblad.
ImageMattias PetterssonThe afternoon started with handing over the SciLifeLab sign from Director Olli Kallioniemi to Umeå Site director Linda Sandblad, a symbolic gesture of Umeå officially becoming one of the SciLifeLab national sites. The rest of the session was dedicated to the inspiring presentation of the different research programmes of SciLifeLab, DDLS and WCMM and research highlights from their fellows.
Niklas Arnberg, Professor at the Department of Clinical Microbiology, talks about virus-host cell interactions.
ImageMattias PetterssonThe celebration programme continued with a poster session, allowing networking and direct interaction with the different national and local facilities. During this part of the Day’s programme, the celebrative ambience was supported by cakes in the colours of SciLifeLab logotype, sparkling drinks, and inspiring discussions between participants.
Researchers and infrastructure staff members mingle during the facilities’ poster presentations.
ImageMattias Pettersson
SciLifeLab Day Umeå celebration cakes
ImageDavid GottholdLater in the afternoon, in the break between the research presentations, a magical performance by Nordcirkus sparkled. The Nordcirkus based in Södra Årefjällen is interested in environmental, knowledge and health issues and, through their art, explores the human capabilities of making the world, globally and locally, a better world.
Nordcirkus's performance added magic to the celebration of SciLifeLab Day Umeå
ImageMattias PetterssonThe SciLifeLab Day Umeå provided a fantastic opportunity to bring together researchers and infrastructure experts from Umeå and other national sites, meet each other in person, talk and get new ideas on how to implement the SciLifeLab’s technologies and expertise in the research.
Among the enthusiastic participants was Kate Bennett, manager of the Computational Analytics Support Platform (CASP) at Umeå University, who appreciated the great choice of topics and speakers.
"SciLifeLab Day Umeå was an exciting, fun-filled event, packed with stimulating presentations and discussions displaying both world-class research and cutting-edge technologies available at Umeå University and within the SciLifeLab community,” says Kate Bennett.
She continues:
“Being part of a local infrastructure, it was fantastic to meet and learn from SciLifeLab infrastructures, which have succeeded in becoming leading centers offering state-of-the-art services to the life science community in Sweden and beyond."
SciLifeLab Day Umeå followed the first of four site opening celebrations in Gothenburg in April and gave the tone for this autumn before handing over the baton to Lund and Linköping on the 28th of September and 10th of October, respectively.
SciLifeLab Day on the national sites
SciLifeLab Day Umeå: A day of knowledge exchange and community celebration (SciLifeLab website)