FEEDBACK from 2022

A very well constructed course focusing on both the wet-lab and the dry-lab parts of single cell genomics technologies. Specialists across Europe serving as guest instructors, together with a multimember team from the Biomedical Center, delivered valuable knowhow, hands-on experience and one-to-one assistance during the workshops.

The content was organised as an A to Z walkthrough from the theoretical background, the lab procedures and finally the bioinformatics, where the learning curve -especially during the last 2 days- becomes more steep; An introductory R course was provided though to assist R beginners.

All courses were conducted in state-of-the-art facilities, in a very pleasant, friendly environment. The unforgettable city tour combined with a visit to the Pilsen Urquell Brewery and the rest of the social events completed an overall unique experience.

The Summer School of Single Cell in Pilsen allowed me to bridge the gap between data generation and data analysis by providing insights into the entire single-cell workflow - from A to Z. In addition, working together in teams formed of young researchers from different disciplines enabled different perspectives and approaches into the same problem, which ultimately improved the outcome of our findings. Moreover, this enabled our communication and talk to become more comprehensible to people from any fields. Finally, the summer school was a place to meet (young) scientists with different backgrounds. This was an excellent way to increase my knowledge and expand my scientific and cultural experience as much as it allowed me to improve and enhance my career prospects and promote intercultural understanding. In summary, the Summer School of Single Cell left me with great knowledge and memories, and exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend it to anyone working with single cells, or to those who have an interest or intention to do so in the future.

I liked the summer school a lot. It covered a broad spectrum of different aspects and that is a strength. I personally think that it would be nice (although I know it takes a lot of effort) to add some e-learning content to the course, so that the participants could prepare for the single days and consult the e-learning content when there are questions about the content. Also, there a plenty of R tutorials out there and pointing people to some of them would be great to make sure, that more people have at least some basic understanding of the concept of programming in R even before the course, so that they’re not falling behind during the R challenge.

The Summer School has been a brilliant experience. The whole programme was superbly organised and well thought out. In addition to expertly delivered talks, a consistent timetable of events, and great catering; I believe that every single attendee learned something new and gained a renewed appreciation of single cell analysis. Having dedicated wet lab and dry lab days meant that we experienced the whole process, from creating a single cell suspension to analysing and interpreting the final UMAP/tSNE plots. It was also refreshing to have different demonstrators/supervisors for each section of the training. To me, that was an indication that we were being taught by true, dedicated, experts. Beyond the technical side of the programme, I found it to be one of the most socially engaging courses I’ve attended thus far. Having 20 attendees was a great decision, it meant that we all had a good chance to network with one another to a high enough degree. We’re all still in touch to date, and I know for a fact that multiple amazing friendships have blossomed during this period.

The summer school offered me so many memorable moments. From the point of my arrival to the time of departure I enjoyed it a lot. The organization of the summer school was beyond my expectation ( to be honest, I didn’t expect it to be that much amazing). Distinguished talks from the experts and fascinating technology from the companies in this field left me surprised at what’s happening in this field around the world. I was most astonished by the variety of food they provided (especially homemade Ice creams, the best meat I ever had in the Czech Republic during the Pilson brewery tour)and the hospitality of the entire crew. The data analysis part was hard for me, but it gave me a strong motivation to learn R studio from scratch. Irrespective of toughness, the trainers gave their best to make me understand each step. In my free time, the scientists allowed us to discuss the current problems I am facing in this research field, providing valuable inputs to address them. Overall this summer school offered me some beautiful moments to be cherished (thanks to all the colleagues who became friends now), strong motivation to learn more, a great opportunity to collaborate and recent updates on the current research.

I enjoyed this opportunity, and think the school well managed to cover the general outlines commonly used in single cell studies. We experienced a warm opportunity for scientific networking and friendship with supervisors, organizers and lovely participants attended from different countries.

Simply put: the summer school was extremely cool. It was interesting and refreshing to meet young researchers with such diverse background. The lectures were short but informative. For me, it was especially inspiring to hear Vittoria Bocchi and even have the opportunity to talk to her. Wet-lab training was amazingly well-organized. Data analysis training was planned in a way so that everyone could follow - it started from the basics and introduced Seurat efficiently. I really appreciated that supervisors also explained the relevant theoretical background. The most valuable thing was that we could ask our questions from experienced, supportive people. The organizers created many networking opportunities and made sure we were never thirsty or hungry. Everything, from lecture slides to food was of great quality. Supervisors communicated with us as if we were on the same level, and somehow, we all felt “at home” very quickly. I cannot think of anything that would need serious improvement.

What I liked about the Summer School ranges from great organization, eager to help supervisors and interesting labs to tasty snacks, organized tour through Pilsen (with beer tasting of course) and most importantly the friendliest and most respectful co-participants. Sometimes I got a bit lost during the lab, but thankfully there was always someone experienced in the group, so we were able to work together as a team and complement each other’s abilities. I would like to once again thank the organizers, supervisors and now friends for a memorable and productive week and I wish everyone the best of luck in their future research.

I very much enojyed summer school, it gave me a lot of new experiences. Beside the data analysis itself that was for me very new, it gave me new perspective about the science world. As a master´s student I still have some doubts about my abilities and knowledge in this field and the organizers, supervisors and other participants showed me that this is completely normal and also that I am not that “usless” as I though. It terms of the programm it was sometimes very overwhelming, maybe if Iros and Alec gave us more time to do the coding ourself (after showing us) it would be much more easier to focus on the theoritical part. Sometimes I just got lost because it was all new and very fast to me. Beside this I was very satified with the program!