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MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit

 

About us


The MBU Postdoctoral Society aims to facilitate interactions between postdocs across the Unit in order to create a friendly network of shared skills and expertise. Our committee members are:

  • Federica De Lazzari
  • Maiangela Dionysopoulou
  • Stavroula Petridi
  • Dylan Ryan
  • Lindsey Van Haute

If you have any questions about who we are and what we do as a society, please get in touch.

All postdocs are automatically added to our mailing list when they start working at the Unit, so you will always be kept up to date on our events. You can also follow us on Twitter. Not on Twitter but keen to advertise your work? Let us know!

Upcoming events

We always aim to make our events hybrid. The online link can usually be found in the email announcements or, alternatively, just ask one of the Postdoc Society members.  If you can't attend, please do get in touch, so we can share any materials.

Our postdoc talks are held from 5pm in Seminar Room 3.37, so please join us!

Activities

We try to organise a range of different activities. Most of these are informal, and they are always a great opportunity to meet or reconnect with colleagues you haven’t spoken to in a while.

We regularly host tea & coffee with seminar speakers when someone gives a formal unit-wide talk.

Our postdoc talks are where we discuss work in progress, or practise upcoming conference talks. Unlike a formal seminar, you can talk about whatever you like, in whatever format you like. Looking for feedback on a presentation you’re preparing? Let us know and we can add you to the calendar!

Career events are a great opportunity to learn about the different paths people take in and out of academia. We also host coffee with external MBU seminar speakers, including senior academics from other universities, journal editors, etc.

Want to learn a bit of code? Or how to write a good peer review? Our workshops focus on both research and non-research skills we need for a successful career in science.

Finally, we run socials! Grabbing a pint after a postdoc talk is a great way to get to know people, especially if you are new to the Unit. We also organise monthly coffee mornings and bigger events now and again, with plenty of pizza to go around.

As MBU postdocs we are part of the wider university community. The University Postdoc Society also regularly hosts events that all are welcome to attend.

 

Upcoming events

  • 19 October 2023 Postdoc talk: Eloise Marques will present her previous work: “Study of the Lipocalin-2 effect on mitochondrial dynamics and its implication in renal pathologies”.

  • 16 November 2023 Postdoc talk: John Wright

  • 7 December 2023 Postdoc talk: Mariangela Dionysopoulou will give a talk about “Techniques to investigate novel inhibitors for the MPC: Mitochondrial Pyruvate Carrier”

Some of our past events

Recent events:

  • 15 June 2023 Postdoc talk: open mic event where we discussed a variety of topics, including fellowship/grant proposals.

  • 18 May 2023 Chris Powell talked about "How are dissociated peptidyl-tRNAs cleared from mammalian mitochondria?"

  • 20 April 2023: Sotira Tavoulari gave a talk about her work "Distinct mechanisms of dysfunction of citrin variants associated with citrin deficiency"

  • 16 March 2023: Hannah Bridges presented her recent work on biguanides and Complex I.

  • 9 February 2023: Postdoc dinner. A lovely social event with great food and an even better atmosphere.

While the pandemic curbed all of our social lives, the MBU Postdoc Society organised some fun and informative events.

  • Joint seminars with CIMR Postdocs from the MBU and CIMR come together to discuss methods advances. So far we have held two of these very popular seminars: one on microscopy (1 July 2022) and one on structural biology (18 November 2022).

  • 5 May 2022: ggplot2 workshop Both postdocs and students attended this interactive data visualisation workshop. You can read more about it here and access the teaching materials here.

  • 22 April 2021: Careers event The careers event brought together four MBU alumni working in different sectors. It was fantastic and inspiring to hear the success the panel have gone on to achieve and to be able to answer questions about their journey.

  • 25 February 2021: Science session This Science session was the precursor of our Postdoc talks. Michele talked about his work in a relaxed, informal environment. It was brilliant to hear about his fantastic work, as well as about some of the challenges he faced, which prompted great discussions.

  • 3rd Friday of the month: Zoom socials These popular monthly socials helped keep us in touch with each other. They were particularly helpful for those of us who were isolating or shielding, as well as those of us who don't do wet lab work.