Yogyakarta, March 6 2024 – The Faculty of Biology in collaboration with the Faculty of Pharmacy, and the Faculty of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing held a guest lecture in collaboration with Universiteit Leiden, the Netherlands. The guest lecture was held in the Tropical Biology Auditorium, Faculty of Biology with guest speaker Prof. Dr. Herman Spaink as Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology, Prof. Dr. Erik Danen as Dean of Graduate School of Science and Professor of Cancer Drug Target Discovery, Universiteit Leiden, Dr. Jan de Sonneville and Dr. Yi Ding from Life Science Method BV, the Netherlands. The lecture was attended by students, lecturers and researchers from various faculties of Universitas Gadjah Mada.
“This guest lecture did not only present one, but 4 guest lecturer,” said Prof. Dr. Budi Setiadi Daryono, M.Agr.Sc. as Dean of the Faculty of Biology in his speech, Wednesday (6/3). He also gave warm greetings to the four speakers who attended the guest lecture and expressed his appreciation for the long-standing collaboration between the Faculty of Biology UGM and Universiteit Leiden, in particular the Faculty of Science.
“We have collaborated with UGM on joint facility, working with robotic injection and CRISPR Cas9,” said Prof. Herman replying Prof. Budi before. He appreciated the research collaboration that existed, especially in the construction of joint facilities for research Zebrafish with UGM.
In the guest lecture, Dr. Yi Ding gave a presentation entitled “Zebrafish: an excellence organism for diabetes” which focuses its research on developing Zebrafish as an animal model for diabetes case studies. Next, Dr. Jan de Sonneville with his presentation “From research Finding to Prototype to Product. Design, Engineering, and Business Development of Life Science Methods BV”. Dr. Jan conveyed the development of the robotic microinjection tool as an efficient and effective alternative to manual injection.
As Dean of Graduate School of Science, Universiteit Leiden, Prof. Erik also gave a presentation regarding Universiteit Leiden, especially the Faculty of Science. On the same occasion, the Professor of Cancer Drug Target Discovery also gave a lecture with the title “Model for cancer drug target discovery”. He also mentioned the development of the zebrafish animal model in his pharmacology research.
Prof. Herman was the closing guest lecture on Wednesday afternoon (6/3). The Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology delivered his presentation entitled “Mycobacterial diseases and the search for new medicines”.
All participants were enthusiastic about attending the lecture from morning to afternoon. It is hoped that this collaboration can contribute to the development of research and education in Indonesia, in line with support for sustainable development goals (SDGs), especially support for inclusive education through sustainable partnerships (SDG 4 and SDG 17).