Events

On July 6 and 11, the ESEI-BioMed project running at the Regional Institute of Oncology Iasi organized "Open days" within the TRANSCEND Research Center for two groups of 25 high school students from the 11th and 12th grades, coming from socio-economically underprivileged backgrounds and following different specializations, especially Natural Sciences and Computer Science. Through this activity, students came across with modern research in nanomedicine, and found out about the role of nanotechnology in general and nanomedicine in particular to improve our everyday life.

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Through the ESEI-BioMed project, 50 students from the 11th and 12th grades, coming from high schools in the counties of Iași, Bacău, Botoșani, Suceava, Neamț, Vaslui, with socio-economically underprivileged conditions and backgrounds had the opportunity to visit the TRANSCEND Research Center. For two days, 6 and 11 July 2022, the students were introduced to the atmosphere of modern research in nanomedicine with focus on oncology and they had the opportunity to see "live" how the properties of matter change when the size is reduced to the nanometer level through experiments organized in this sense. Through this event, students had the chance to get to know laboratories where scientific experiments take place, for example, The Nanotechnology Laboratory, and to interact with researchers working in the fields of chemistry and biology, two of the important fields in nanomedicine. The meetings were structured as follows:

(i) watching a presentation film of the ESEI-BioMed project and related laboratories

(ii) the project coordinator, Dr. Brîndușa Drăgoi, gave them apresentation (“Nanoscience - for Everyone / for Everything (in everyday life)”) based on which there have been discussions about nanoscience, nanotechnology and nanomedicine with the high school students

(iii) experiments carried out by the high school students under the supervision of Dr. Brîndușa Drăgoi. The aim was for the students to experience a bit of the life of a scientific researcher and to understand that research work does not only involve practical activity in the laboratory, but also a lot of study to design new experiments, to understand the obtained results and to disseminate them in the scientific community, but also to the outreach in an accessible language. Because the students are before taking the baccalaureate exam, their guidance toward an academic/ scientific research career, especially in the field of nanomedicine, was also considered.

At the end, each student received a kit with personalized items, consisting of a cotton bag, a pen, a presentation brochure, a thermal insulated stainless steel mug, an umbrella, and a wooden domino game. By giving them this kit, the message was "We study, we work, but we also relax". All promotion materials in the kit were engraved with the logo of the ESEI-BioMed project.

The event was organized at the TRANSCEND Research Center, Regional Institute of Oncology Iasi,in line with the dissemination, communication, and promotion plan of the ESEI-BioMed project.A more detailed presentation of the TRANSCEND Research Center,as well as details regarding the ESEI-BioMed project,are available in this video presentation.