Meet the $250 Lab Fun Grant Winners
We are pleased to introduce the winners of our Hello Bio Lab Fun Grants, Katharina Klinger & Tineke de Jong! The Hello Bio Lab Fun Grant is a unique $250 award that encourages team bonding and aims to strengthen social relationships between colleagues. The grant is to be spent on something fun for all of the team to enjoy together!
We spoke to both winners to find out more about their labs and how they plan to spend the money…
Katharina Klinger
Katharina Klinger is a fourth year PhD student working in the Stork Lab at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg in Germany. She told us how she felt about the Lab Fun Grant and why awards like this are so good for team morale:
I really liked the idea from Hello Bio to provide a grant for doing something fun and social together with the lab to strengthen the team spirit. So, I applied and was very excited and happy when I won the grant. Being a scientist is much more than the individual; a good lab atmosphere is important. Katharina Klinger, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany, Hello Bio $250 Lab Fun Grant Winner
Can you tell us a bit more about your lab?
Our lab is the Stork Lab in the Department of Genetics and Molecular Neurobiology led by Prof. Dr. sc. nat. habil. Oliver Stork. His lab contains around 20 people who are all working on different projects with different techniques, which gives us great possibilities to collaborate inside the lab and also to stay updated on different projects.
What are you personally working on at the moment?
I’m a fourth year PhD student working on the influence of interneurons on hippocampal plasticity and their modulation through the neurotransmitter system during healthy ageing. Furthermore, I am very interested in sex-differences in degenerative and psychiatric diseases, especially during healthy ageing.
What will your team use the Lab Fun Grant for?
We will go for a so-called ‘fox flight’ (zipline experience) in the Harz and if we have some money left over, we will also buy group shirts.
Tineke de Jong
Our second winner is Tineke de Jong, a PhD student in the Sebastiano Lab at the Stanford School of Medicine, USA. She told us how pleased she and her team were to receive the award:
Our lab is very grateful to receive this grant from Hello Bio! It is amazing to be able to organise social events again after such a long time. Tineke de Jong, Stanford School of Medicine, USA, Hello Bio $250 Lab Fun Grant Winner
Can you tell us a bit more about your lab?
We are the Sebastiano Lab, part of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Stanford School of Medicine, which is led by Vittorio Sebastiano and we currently have 10 group members.
What are you personally working on at the moment?
Currently I am working on partial reprogramming of human fibroblasts from different locations in the body (lymph node, bone marrow and synovium). We investigate if rejuvenating these cells might be a way to prevent or improve disease development.
What will your team use the Lab Fun Grant for?
With the Lab Fun Grant we would like to organise a lab day out together. We had a lot of new people joining the lab recently/during COVID and we have not been able to get together yet in an informal setting. It can improve collaboration in the lab when you get to know each other better outside the lab.
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Congratulations to both of our winners, and we hope you all enjoy your team activities!
Connect with Katharina:
- LinkedIn: Katharina Klinger
- ResearchGate: Katharina Klinger
Connect with Tineke:
- LinkedIn: Tineke de Jong
- Twitter: @SebastianoLab
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