The purpose of the Program in Basic and Clinical Microbiology (BCM) is to provide a platform for graduate students to obtain solid, high-level foundation in the general field of Molecular and/or Clinical Microbiology. More specifically the BCM program shall:
• Provide a forum for professional and social interactions among scientists and Ph.D. students enrolled in it.
• Promote globalization by involving internationally renowned guest scientists in its courses, workshops and seminars, by financially supporting participation of foreign Ph.D. students in offered courses, by facilitating active participation of Ph.D. students in international conferences, and by promoting student
exchanges to and from internationally recognized foreign research groups,
• Seek to strengthen research ties among the partner institutions to enhance opportunities to obtain external funding and to generate professional opportunities for BCM’s graduates.
Microbial diseases remain one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide, partly due to a dramatic increase in drug resistance. Members of the BCM programme cover a variety of topics in microbiology, including basic research on characterization of central cellular activities in bacteria, molecular basis for antibiotics resistance, modelling of resistance dissemination, discovery and validation of targets in essential processes, development of novel diagnostic tools, clinical characterization of pathogenic bacteria and development of novel compounds for treatment of infectious diseases. The synergy between researchers and students from these very diverse areas will result in the formation of a network between partner institutions that is currently not present. Such a network, promoted by the BCM program, will in turn boost the quantity and quality of Ph.D. students and in addition lead to the start of novel cross disciplinary research project involving
partner institutions.
The program will have competences and experiences in microbial and human genetics, molecular biology, cell biology, bioinformatics, clinical microbiology, infectious diseases, drug discovery, high throughput screening, treatment and surveillance of antibiotics resistance, hospital hygiene, laboratory based computer solutions, etc.
The formal training of supervisors includes Biochemistry, Biology, Medicine and Civil Engineers. All partners of this application possess cutting edge expertise in their respective fields.
The program is unique because it covers all aspects of microbiology ranging from basic research through diagnostics and antibiotics development to treatment of patients. Two leading Danish Universities, Roskilde University (RUC; Anders Løbner-Olesen, Tove Atlung, Ole Skovgaard, Viggo Andreasen) and Syddansk
University (SDU; Birgitte Kallipolitis, Poul Valentin Hansen, Steven Doutwaithe, Birthe Vester, Raymond Cox, Gary Schoenhals) with strong Microbiology Departments are partners. The State Serum Institute (SSI; Michael Kemp, Jens Jørgen Christensen) has a unique position in Denmark in surveillance, diagnostics and
treatment of infectious diseases. The Health Care System of Region Sjælland (Teis Andersen, Knud Rasmussen, Niels Højlyng, Peter Bytzer, Henrik Friis) services 15% of the Danish population and hosts one Clinical Microbiology Department (Region Sjælland Vest) and one Department of infection Medicine (Region
Sjælland Øst). Finally the Industrial Partners Novozymes A/S (Hans Henrik Kristensen, Thomas Kruse) and Leo Pharma A/S (Rasmus Bugge Jensen, Allan Christensen), represents the largest Danish Biotech Company and the one of the world leaders in antibiotics production, respectively.
Members of BCM are involved in several high profile research collaborations including: The Danish Center for Bacterial Genetics (SNF-Center), LMC (Centre for Advanced Food Studies), NAC-Nucleic Acids Center (Grundforskningsfonden), and Centre for mRNP Biogenesis and Metabolism (Grundforskningsfonden).
All the involved institutions have educational obligations and experience. Roskilde University and Syddansk University have educational programmes for bachelor-, master-, and PhD degrees. The BCM scientists from these institutions cover aspects of bacterial biochemistry, genetics, physiology and genomics. The recent vast expansion of the DNA databases has launched the field of genomics (analysis and comparison of whole genome sequences). Genomics has revolutionized molecular biology in general and molecular microbiology in particular.
Region Zealand has a centralized department of clinical microbiology (located at Slagelse Hospital) and one regional function for treatment of infectious diseases (located at Roskilde Hospital). These Departments Appendix B, Project description 2 provide specialized services for the regional hospitals as well for the primary sector. In general, the regional health care system currently provides care for 85% of all cases among the 806.000 inhabitants of the region.
Thus, Region Zealand provides an ideal base for clinical studies in a large, unselected and fairly homogeneous population. The regional university functions are young but rapidly growing. The university hospitals take part in the Medical Biology education at RUC, and the hospitals contribute markedly to the clinical education of
medical students at the University of Copenhagen. A number of Associate professor and Research associate professorships have been established. The first Full professor has commenced and two more will be appointed later this year. Several departments have Ph.D. students appointed. Statens Serum Institut is an enterprise under the Danish Ministry of the Interior and Health, and the Institute’s duties are partly integrated in the national Danish health services. Statens Serum Institut has long experience in providing means to ensure advanced control of infectious diseases, including development of new diagnostic analyses and surveillance systems. Details on recent production data, including scientific achievements, are available at: www.ssi.dk/sw3767.asp. Statens Serum Institut has a long tradition for education of professionals at all levels in health science and biotechnology. Industrial partners of the program are researchers from the largest Danish Biotechnology Industry, Novozymes, and a medium size company, Leo Pharma A/S, who seeks to develop novel types of antibiotics and possess expertise in basic microbiology, high throughput screening, and development of lead compounds into antibiotics for human use. The industrial partners will contribute to the program through participation in Ph.D. courses and through presentation of their work at the BCM Workshops. Finally we hope and expect that enough synergy between participants will emerge to justify co-financed Ph.D. student projects including industrial participants.
To ensure the highest quality Ph.D. candidates, all fellowships financed entirely by BCM will be defined broadly within the graduate school’s scope and advertised openly. Fellowships will be awarded to the bestqualified applicants. For fellowships co-financed by a host-institution, the procedure of enrolment follows the
standard rules of said host-institution. Students must be enrolled at one of the degree-granting partners of BCM in order to be enrolled in the graduate school. Ph.D. students enrolled in BCM shall, as a minimum, fulfill the normal rules and requirements for Ph.D. students in the degree-granting institution to which they are affiliated.
It is an important principle of the BCM program that each individual Ph.D. project is linked directly to the research programmes at the participating institutions. This will enable the students to take advantage of the expected synergy between partners. Therefore, the Ph.D. projects will be within of BCM’s central areas of interests, including establishment and validation of new diagnostic assays, bacteriological characterization, sources of infections, infection control, management, and surveillance, etc. The BCM program aims to educate Ph.D.’s at a high level such that they will be able to continue their careers within the university system, within
government research institutes or in the biotechnology industry.
We have initiated collaboration with Oslo University through Professor Kirsten Skarstad. Ph.D. students from the program will now have access to the course in Pharmaceutical Microbiology (FRM5810, www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/farmasi/FRM5810/index.xml ) at Oslo University. The course is held over two weeks in the spring. In return Norwegian students will be given access to courses offered by the BCM program. Kirsten will also serve as a guest Lecturer on some of our planned Ph.D. courses as will Martin Marinus, University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Santanu Dasgupta of Uppsala University. Similar arrangements will be sought with other partner universities. We intent to provide funding to allow a limited number of our students to participate in commercial highlevel Ph.D. courses offered by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, EMBO etc.
The BCM program Management Board consists of 5 senior members and two Ph.D. students. The senior members are elected by their colleagues and the student representatives by their fellow Ph. D students enrolled in the programme. It is implied that key supervisors from the participating institutions are chosen.The members
of the Board are appointed for a 2-year period, and election takes place at the annual programme symposium. The Board shall elect its own Chairman and Vice-chairman.
Director Anders Løbner-Olesen (RUC) lobner(at)ruc.dk +45 4674 2403 (direct) web-page
Vicedirector Birgitte Kallipolitis (SDU) bhk(at)bmb.sdu.dk +45 6550 2372 (direct) web-page
Secretary Louise Damgaard Jensen lodaje(at)ruc.dk +45 4674 2403
Address:
BCM
att.: Louise Damgaard Jensen
Department of Science, Systems and Models, Building 18-1
Roskilde University
Universitetsvej 1
DK-4000 Roskilde