19.03.2010
A double helix as conference venue and training centre
The new EMBL training centre will make the region and Germany as a whole a magnet for the international research elite in the life sciences. (© EMBL Photolab)
The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) has opened a new Advanced Training Centre (ATC) on its campus in Heidelberg. The EMBL intends to establish the new institution as a leading conference venue and training centre for life sciences in Europe. The new centre will equip Heidelberg with "a central European podium at which international scholars from every conceivable discipline will be able to meet to exchange ideas and expertise," stressed Federal Minister of Education and Research Annette Schavan at the inauguration last week.
The new building, which also houses an auditorium with 450 seats, is built in the form of a double helix to represent a DNA molecule (the carrier of genetic information). The building's unusual form underlines the centre's ambition of becoming "a worldwide beacon of state-of-the-art training for up and coming young scientists," according to the Federal Minister.
Regular top-notch conferences of the scientific elite have been the hallmark of the EMBL for many years now. The ATC will allow numerous inquiries from Germany and beyond to be addressed optimally and to promote international exchange of scientific knowledge more intensively than ever, according to a press release. The outstanding infrastructure in Heidelberg and the existing university-based institutional and industrial research networks in the Rhine-Neckar region will continue to play an important role.
The EMBL is a basic research institute which was set up as an international institution on the initiative of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) in 1974. It is currently financed by 20 European countries and Australia in its capacity as an associated member state.
