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Germany’s biggest life science initiative, btS e.V., is active at over 20 (technical) universities and has more than 1100 members. Acting under their claim “from students for students” they organize job fairs, excursions to companies from the field of life sciences, workshops, symposia and many other different networking events.

Three years ago a separate association was founded for all btS alumni, the btS Alumni e.V.
Among several small events all over the year, the Alumni Business Days are the certain highlight of the year’s curriculum.

This year MLM hosted the annual meeting on October 25th/26th, welcoming 25 professionals from pharma, biotech, academia, consulting and bioprocess companies. Prof. Stephan Wnendt, CEO at MLM, gave insight to the business of clinical trials in general and MLM’s central lab services specifically. After an extensive and very interactive lab tour by Dr. Stephan Voswinkel, COO, the internal program started.

Dr. Nina Wenke, Science Manager of the chair of experimental bioinformatics at the Technical University of Munich, gave novel insights about systems medicine. Based on computer models clinical data are analyzed to extract mechanistic subnetworks with the aim to further understand disease mechanisms and on the long end be able to provide individual therapy for patients.

Niklas Tenhaef, Scientist at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, introduced the use of Python as a tool for evaluating data science. Due to the availability of powerful and easy to use libraries in this programming language, the ever-growing amount of experimental data can be tamed and turned into valuable insights.
A very intense and successful day one was rounded up by a networking dinner.

The program on Saturday was dedicated to internal topics. Working group meetings were held, to develop the still very young association further. One major topic in the afternoon was the annual general assembly with the election of a new board.

A big thank you to Dr. Gundula Sprick (Thermo Fisher Scientific), Dr. Marcel Best (Sanofi), Niclas Schiller (GESA mbH), Till Olfers (Becton Dickinson) and Thilo Duensing (MSD Animal Health) for their yearlong commitment. You built a great framework to develop the association further!

The new board members, Anja Riesterer (Sutter Medizintechnik), Pascal Bergerhoff (agap2 Deutschland – Life Sciences), Sindy Oppermann (Dorothea Küsters Life Science Communications) and Stefan Backhaus (MANN + HUMMEL) are taking over and are very enthusiastic about their new position.