On Thursday 25th May 2017, the Center for Nanobiology and Structual Biology (CNSB) in Nové Hrady welcomed 48 students and their teachers from the Anglo-Czech High School in České Budějovice, the C4sys Research Infrastructure (C4Sys RI) being the main topic of their excursion.
First the students attended a speech by the director of the CNSB and the C4Sys RI – Prof. Rüdiger Ettrich. He introduced the infrastructure, talking about its development, purpose and objectives. He then explained what each research group involved in the infrastructure is focused on and what their main activities are, illustratively accompanying his speech with slides from his PPT presentation to clarify some difficult processes for the students. Since the C4Sys infrastructure is directly linked to the Infrastructure for Systems Biology in Europe (ISBE), prof. Ettrich also covered its role and the link between these two infrastructures. In the end, he compared data storing in the USA and in Europe.
The theoretical part was followed by a tour of laboratories at the CNSB. The students were divided in two groups and viewed the research premises of the Center with commentaries by their two “tour guides” – Prof. Ettrich and Dr. Lazar. They could see the scientific work as well as all the equipment used, in particular the Laboratory of Cell Biology, which focuses on the development and applications of two-photon polarization microscopy and related advanced optical microscopy techniques, and the Laboratory of Structure and Function of Proteins, with its central research issue being the relationship between the structure and function of the proteins and their complexes.
Finally, the students paid a brief visit to the Algatech Centre in Třeboň, whose Laboratory of Photosynthesis under the supervision of Prof. Josef Komenda is also part of the C4Sys infrastructure.
