The congress was chaired by Anish Kirtane, PhD student with Prof. Kristy Deiner, and Sébastien Giroud, PhD student with Prof. Rolf Kipfer. After a short opening lecture by the current head of IBP, Prof. Kristopher McNeill, in which he emphasized the diversity of research areas at IBP and the special status of Eawag, twelve lectures and two poster sessions with a total of 31 posters were held throughout the day. The contributions of the doctoral students covered the diversity of research conducted by IBP, ranging from approaches to depth-resolved modeling of ocean extremes to the coupling of the iron and phosphate cycle in oxygen-deficient soils to the determination of the influence of temperature or uptake pathways on toxicokinetic processes.

Best poster and best presentation awarded

The prize for the best poster was won by Pauline Béziat from the research group of Prof. Lenny Winkel with a poster on the selenium requirements of marine algae. In particular, Pauline is interested in the question of why this biolimiting trace element is biovolatilized. The prize for the best presentation was won by Astrid Stubbusch from the research groups of Prof. Martin Ackermann and Dr. Olga Schubert and Prof. Cara Magnabosco. In her doctoral thesis she deals with the type VI secretion system (T6SS) and was able to show, among other things, that this system not only serves to eliminate competition, but also to procure nutrients.

In addition to technical discussions, the participants of the congress also had the opportunity to exchange informal ideas during coffee breaks and lunch. In addition, Eliane Ballmer and Sofia Ambrogetti, both master students at IBP, organized a treasure hunt with thematically appropriate prizes.

The organizing committee - consisting of Emma Chollet Ramampiandra (Siam), Sarah Descloux (Utox) and Sven Mosimann (Utox) - would like to take this opportunity to thank the participants and the chairmen, Anish Kirtane and Sébastien Giroud, as well as the auxiliary assistants, Eliane Ballmer and Sofia Ambrogetti. We would also like to thank Dr. Anouk N'Guyen van Chinh and Dr. Marcel Müller for giving us the opportunity to organize this congress and for their support in the planning and execution. Furthermore, we would like to express our gratitude to the aQa team for the excellent catering as well as the technical service for their help during the congress.