The recruitment of the 15 MIRIADE early-stage researchers (ESRs) is almost completed, with 14 ESRs already on board. Clearly, becoming an outstanding researcher is not a straight path, it includes working abroad as Marie Curie herself did. During this unprecedented pandemic situation, the doctoral researchers accepted the positions to achieve the MIRIADE common goal- an early diagnosis of dementia. Team MIRIADE held its first official network-wide training week, virtually, from the 9-13 November.
The training week kicked off with an introduction from the project coordinator, Prof. Dr Charlotte Teunissen, located at the Amsterdam University Medical Center, followed by a short introduction regarding the project logistics by the project manager, Kimberley Kolijn. A round of interactions by the diverse group of ESRs followed next. The first session also included several educational talks given by the different consortium partners and beneficiaries, broadly based on the topic of “Body fluid Biomarkers for Dementia”. The day ended with an engaging virtual social event organised for the ESRs.
Over the course of the remaining week, the ESRs attended a course regarding scientific integrity and several lecture-discussion sessions on diverse technical as well as non-technical topics. These sessions were designed to equip the ESRs with the required skills, including innovation and project management, protein bioinformatics and entrepreneurship in biotechnology. An eye-opening session was the one engaging people with dementia that gave partipants a deep insight into their perspective and created an inspiring discussion with the consortium. Dementia is a progressive, debilitating disorder that affects millions of individuals world-wide, and as scientists, it is of utmost relevance to remind ourselves that the ultimate end-goal of our research is the betterment of lives of real people who are living with these diseases.
The overall goal of this training week was to present to the ESRs the multifactorial nature of research and the different perspectives that dementia research constitutes. The training week, albeit virtual, was informative, educational, allowed the ESRs to form social bonds and most importantly, was a great way to kick- start the MIRIADE Project.
