Workshops
In addition to projects and lectures, students will participate in two specialized
workshops. Complete information coming soon.
Research Swapshop
Research Swapshop extends the range of topics covered by
S3. Participants will get the opportunity to work in another
scientific field with different people and different methodology. This
evening workshop is led mostly by former S3 participants, now
university students or high school graduates.
Virus propagation analysis
Nino Antulov-Fantulin
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb,
Croatia
Complex networks represent new and natural media for studying virus
propagation. Students will get brief introduction to complex networks and
virus propagation. Using the computer program, group will have to create
different networks (artificial populations) on which the simulations will be
performed. One student will try to infect artificial populations to cause
pandemia, while others will try to prevent it. Alternating the parameters,
different effects will be shown. Finally, all effects will be analyzed.
Attending this project, student will learn basics in mathematical modeling,
complex networks and their application to virus propagation.
Heart: structure and function
Tomislav Kokotovic
School of Medicine, University of Zagreb,
Croatia
The most spread dysfunctions and diseases of the human body are related with
heart and blood vessels. Central role of the heart is more than obvious in
every day's life. For better understanding the function, after theoretical
introduction, students will explore anatomy of the pig's heart. At first,
external morphology will be observed, and than internal structures. Main
technique in the swapshop is dissection, which gives better view and
understanding of a particular anatomical structure and its function. After
getting familiar with the anatomy, we will try to correlate morphology with
the function by exploring regulation of hearts systole and diastole.
Isolating plasmid DNA from transformed bacteria
Marko Gogala
Faculty of Sciences, University of Zagreb,
Croatia
Plasmids are small circular DNA fragments present in most bacteria. They
encode nonessential, but sometimes useful traits like resistence to
antibiotics, production of toxins and the brakedown of natural products.
Foreign genes can be incorporated into bacterial plasmids and then
multiplied together with their host bacteria, a method known as recombinant
DNA technology. Thus, today plasmids are of great interest in biotechnology
as vectors for cloning and expression of genes. In this project, students
will extract and purify recombinant plasmid DNA from a sample of transformed
Escherichia coli. They will analyze the results of transformation and
purification by agarose gel electrophoresis. The students will learn to
derive data from one of the most useful methods of molecular biology. Roles
of plasmids as vectors, drug resistence mediators and in bacterial gene
recombination will also be discussed.
Colour change chemistry - synthesis of indicators
Andjela Saric
Faculty of Sciences, University of Zagreb,
Croatia
Colour science is a broad subject consisting of various aspects of
chemistry, physics and technology. Design and synthesis of organic dyes and
their application are of great laboratory interest. Students will be
introduced to the physical origin of colour and its relation to the
structure of organic molecules. Using two important organic reactions-
electrophilic aromatic substitution and azo coupling each student will make
his own coloured molecule, investigate it's properties in different pH
conditions, observe colour changes and try to explain them by making changes
in the initial molecule's structure. Comparing all given molecules we will
mention some principles of theoretical physical chemistry. In short, in this
project we will play with molecule structures and their colours and deal
with some of the basics of organic and physical chemistry.
Humanity Version 2.0
"The big questions that we are going to ask ourselves in this century
are "what does it mean to be human?" and not least "what does it mean to be
alive?" Technology comes alive through robots and artificial intelligence,
and life is made technological through biotechnology, artificial organs and
limbs, and the genetic engineering of new life forms.
"
During this workshop, we will explore how our notion of humanity will be
challenged by the advancement of science and technology. The workshop is
based on the text "Humanity Version
2.0" written by Anne Skare Nielsen
and Henrik S. Kristensen from the Copenhagen Institute for Futures
Studies.
Leaders
Branimir Lukic
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Martina Mijuskovic
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
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