As a friend complained the other day that: although my “Gchat-status” is “Sea, Sun and Science” I’m always talking about the beach&sun&food, but I’m never talking about the science!!
This is a good opportunity to tell you something (hopefully smart) and to inaugurate the Science Section in my weblog.
I can’t start just like that / saying I’m doing my Post-Doc in Sardegna, it would sound too wrong & you’ll think I’m trying to fool you 
…I thought I’ll bring back a bit of history so maybe you (AND I?) undersntad a bit more on why&how I arrived here
It all started with this overwhelming desire to know more about anything that had to do with body & nature…and the world we’re living in J
I thus enrolled into a life science cycle at the university of Paris-7 also called “Denis Diderot”. The university was part of the enormous “Jussieu” campus. Its localization (hearth of Paris, right in the latin quarter and by the river “Seine”) and the fact that I connected with really good “classmates” made me really happy to go to the university, and there was no doubt you’d find me there at the first hour in the morning until late at night…it can sound un-important but I’d like to stress this point, as university in France is free and everyone can enroll, but what usually happens is that people get seriously de-motivated (coz the university in France is quite fucked up) and stop studies…
Anyway, my first 2 years at Jussieu were about this very general “Life science” degree where a gathered knowledge on chemistry, math, physics & biology.
Then I must say I was very lucky to enroll into the just opened new Master-degree: entitled “biology and informatics”.
Lets say I took the right decision when I was on the right place in the right moment…
Anyway, in this 3 years degree I got more specialized biology classes on biochemistry, thermodynamics and genetics while diving into the world of informatics: with programming & algorithm classes. The last few month of this Master degree I had the chance to do my stage/training research with amazing supervisors: David Perahia and Charles Robert at university Paris-XI.
My first experience with real research was a big success and enjoyment…I started to shout loud that I wanted to go for a PhD…abroad. I felt I had a lot to learn from the outside world, especially in the field of science, surely the mediocre funding and the low-status you get as a French-researcher played a role into my will of leaving Paris.
The opportunity from abroad came really fast, from Norway, and I remember not really being serious about it when applying…but somehow, I got into “the game of selection”, and when I was ranked 1st and invited there…my mind was only thinking about this new potential life/experience…I said YES. And those who know me, also know that I did a choice I’ll never regret…my PhD [feb’ 2004-nov’ 2007] was under supervision of the generous Nathalie Reuter, and at the chemistry department of the university of Bergen-Norway. The thesis is entitled “molecular modeling of the substrate specificity and the membrane anchoring of proteinase 3”. If you’re interested you can take a look at the electronic copy of the thesis: PhD-Thesis-Eric-Hajjar
// if you’re really interested, you can email me for getting a HARD copy (book) of the thesis
Anyway, my PhD/PostDoc transition has a lot in common with the Master/PhD one:
(i) I was loving what I was doing so I didn’t ask myself (too much) if I was going to continue basic research in this field;
(ii) I wanted to go and experience a new place abroad
(iii) the opportunity of something good came really fast.
In this case, I answered (in the right time/moment) to a call from the (highly prestigious)* Marie Curie – European Research Council.
All lights were green in this call:
(i)first personally, with a position for 2 years, a competitive salary, almost unlimited travel funding and a job based in the beautiful (and SUNNY) town of Cagliari.
(i) second the project: which is led locally (in cagliari) by the experienced team-leaders Matteo Ceccarelli & Paolo Ruggerone; which involves up to 5 research groups partners, in Bremen, Porto, Marseille, Munich, Bale and Lausanne.
Practically, my job is to use molecular modeling techniques to research on new antibiotics. Its pretty well summarized in the “modest” website, dedicated to this project: http://www.faculty.iu-bremen.de/mwinterhalter/antibiotics/cindex.html
All is going well, and I’m overwhelmed, although its too early to say much things with sense…I started the position ~3 months ago…
I’ll add more on the exact stuff I do/ plan to do ASAP-
I’ll leave now with this funny note: that my Postdoc here is at the department of physics: after having done my PhD on a very related field at the department of chemistry…proof (for those that still doubted about it) that our Molecular Modeling / Structural Bioinformatic field is really at the interface of a lot of science
1 Comment(s)
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
[...] Science [...]