Greetings from...

Since two weeks I’m working at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in the School of Life Sciences in a great working group! They admitted me with such warmth, that I’m already feeling home. Whenever you enter the laboratory you will hear the laughing of its cheerful members and will get welcomed with a big smile.
Nevertheless, if you visit India as female, you should be aware of drastic restrictions of your freedom and that you need a strong perseverance against some males. In Delhi you shouldn’t stay outside alone for longer than 9 to 10 p.m.. But this shouldn’t discourage you to visit this exciting country and learn more about the culture and people!
This research stay is supported by the Graduate Schools through the DAAD program "A New Passage to India". I really can recommend visiting India within the framework of this program!

I arrived in India nicely and currently at home. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to GSLS and its entire team. It was a memorable and pleasant stay in Germany. I really liked it so much. I would like to come again..!!! It’s too hot in India now. I miss the cosy European weather. The beautiful landscape and cleanliness is what I am going to miss everyday. It was a pleasure being associated with GSLS. Though there came a tough time, leaving Wurzburg and settling in Munich and facing several crises during the last year of my PhD... but at last, by God's grace ... I finished my PhD well. Now I look forward for carrying out my post doctoral research work. I hope to visit the city of Wurzburg with my family in the near future.

Thanks to one and all whom I met during my stay in Germany..!! I carry wonderful memories and would cherish them for ever.

No place like home.  My X-mas vacation in Cameroon was full of fun. Cameroon located in West Central Africa also known as “Africa in miniature” because of its geological and cultural diversity is rich in natural features like beaches, mountains, rainforests and savannas. It is a country with very welcoming and friendly people; no doubt it is the most peaceful country in Africa.
During my vacation in Cameroon I visited some nice places you will like to visit when you come to Cameroon like the town of Limbe. Limbe is famous for its beach and fish with several vendors grilling fish right at the port where they are brought in after being caught. The Limbe beach although not as perfect as the Kribi beach in Cameroon, provides a nice environment for you to relax with your friends and family and also have launch and drink some beer. Also I spent most of my time home with my parents in North West Region (Bamenda). This region is known for its culture. It has one of the best palaces in Cameroon, the Bafut palace. This palace was built by the Germans and is highly visited by tourists worldwide. This region also has a very beautiful botanic garden on the way to the Bafut palace. I could not have left Cameroon without visiting the town of Buea where my former university is located. Buea was the capital of former German Kamerun and it is known for having the highest mountain in West Africa, Mount Cameroon and the only English University in Cameroon. On a bright day in Buea you could see the mountain right to the summit.
Overall I have to say  I really had great  vacation at home  but if you really wish to make your trip to Cameroon more memorable  then you should also think of visiting  other towns especially Kribi, Douala and Yaounde.

Life in Science: East and West

I landed in my present lab with a foreign PhD degree and a high impact factor paper in hand. It would have been much easier to continue working in the same field as of my PhD research, however, I had decided to venture into a new field, and there I was, totally naïve in the field of protein biochemistry and molecular cloning!!  

Coming to lab is a bit relaxed here (touch wood) and I do not feel like watching the clock from 9 am to 5:30 pm. I am still a learner and I wish, I continue to enjoy my work as long as I am into it. Nevertheless, there is always a reality check: how long as a post-doc, what’s next and where. In India, a woman can decide to be a home-maker and society would welcome that whole heartedly, but then, there would raise the very obvious question; so much effort, this long journey for nothing? I guess I still need to workout on my reality check. "So how is it like to lead the life of a post-doc? There is no one word answer to this other than a vague feeling of achieving nothing much in life when you try to look back into the days you spent apart from family and friends and find out with the highest possible degree you are actually earning half of the salary of your MSc class-mate. Really disappointing, isn’t it? I am sure every one of you would miss your own country and people, and not to mention, the language! I am happy to have all of these back although I miss Europe. I miss its chilly weather, snow, Christmas market, the ease of going on trips and the continental cuisines. And what I do not miss at all is breeding mice to kill them for the sake of research.
Lastly I would like to say, life gives us 1000s of opportunity. Which ever we choose, we are going to miss out the rest 999s anyway. So take your time and hit the best deal."

"I arrived as a postdoc at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Institute of Microbiology in February 2011, right around the time of the Spring Festival.

The CAS Institutes get a lot of money from the government, which means research conditions are comparable to Germany. The people here are very curious about foreign countries, eager to learn and very welcoming, gladly helping the newly arrived LaoWai (foreigner) get settled in a strange land. Beijing is an amazing city - unbelievable huge, with highly international areas right next to neighborhoods with an almost village-like atmosphere. The city is fast-moving and fast-changing, and it oozes confidence, knowing it is at the very heart of the Middle Kingdom. While it is possible to survive with English only, a working knowledge of Chinese makes the experience much richer, and opens the door to many people’s hearts.
Finally, you haven’t tasted Chinese food until you’ve tried the delicious Northern Chinese cuisine, which puts any “Ente kross gebraten” to shame."

"I am very glad to greet you here from China. Now I am taking a holiday in Shanghai. It is so nice to stay at home with my parents, meet old friends, enjoy mother’ cooking and sunshine without thinking of the experiments for a while. Last week I had a trip to the Altai Mountains in the largest chinese administrative division Xinjiang. The mountains are located very northern of China, bordered on Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia. When I reached the mountaintop, all the small mountains and Kanas lake around are an amazing sight  I enjoyed myself so much as to forget to leave this beutiful secenery . However, after three weeks’ stay in Shanghai, I find not so in habit of the fast-paced life, so I am starting to miss the slowness in Germany, like the small quiet town, orderliness, people’s smile and leisurely life. The vacation is always the best medicine. I am happy I will be back soon."

"... where I spent two month at the School of Life Sciences of the Jawaharlal Nehru University. I have been working on harmonizing the micronucleus test in buccal mucosa cells - an emerging test in toxicology. Furthermore I was able to establish some contacts to faculty members of the School of Environmental Sciences where a group is working in the same research field as I do - investigating effects of non-ionizing radiation on biological systems. In the framework of a toxicology specialization course, I visited Bhopal, where one the severest industry accidents involving toxicological exposure of the general public occurred.
Additionally I was able to get to know the Indian culture and to visit other places, e. g. Chennai and Mumbai.
This research stay was supported by the Graduate Schools via the DAAD program "A New Passage To India". I can strongly recommend to all PhD student to take advantage of this program and visit this scientifically and culturally exciting country."

The GSLS workshop “Patent Law in the Life Sciences” called my attention to the field of intellectual property protection and the profession of a patent attorney. I was very fascinated by the possibility of spending my further career at the cutting edge of science and technology. Therefore, I was happy about the GLSL assisting me in getting the possibility to perform an internship at an eminently respectable patent attorney office in Munich. Three weeks of internship offered a very personal insight into the methods and ways of working of patent attorneys. Since this law firm contains a large and highly qualified life sciences department, I had the possibility to get involved in different challenging cases of the research areas I am most interested in. Thereby, I became acquainted with a creative and prolific teamwork between members of different departments and public authorities and I appreciated this cooperations. I personally and professionally benefit from this vast experience that might direct my further career to a new direction." (One year later: Lisa has finished her dissertation and works as a Patent Lawyer)

"Greetings from Cape Town! I chose a bad day to arrive here... an overfloated... worse than I thought. My flat was dark, the windows barricaded, felt a bit like jail. But then there was my colleague coming along to see if everything was OK and made me feel at home. After my arrival day I needed only very few days to acclimatize, because the people around me are very friendly and helprful. The weekends my new friends showed me the cape region and its amazing nature. Cape Town City with the Table Mountain in the background is a feast for the eyes, therefore it is not hard to hfall in love with this metropolis, that is influenced by the European culture in many ways and still keeps its own traditions. After almost 7 weeks ther´s a lot of left to experience:) ... I tried to show how my first impressions and feeling were and how I finally fell in love with Cape Town!"