October 4, 2024

It’s almost a year since I made the big move from India to #Austria to start my PhD at the University of Graz! 

It’s been an exciting and engaging journey filled with lab work and research and a chance to travel and meet fellow researchers. Graz quickly felt like home with its vibrant charm and scenery of the Alps (fairly close). 🏔️ It’s been even better with the friends and colleagues I’ve met here, especially our #BiodeCCodiNNg DCs! We also got the chance to host DC1 for his secondment—we had nice company and made some great progress with the work!  

On the #research front, we’ve cracked the protein structure of #NNzymes with decent resolutions (yay!) and started characterizing some other related NNzymes too. đź’Ž Plus, I got to do an industrial secondment with Innophore, learning all things computational structural biology. Now, I’m all set to chase more beautiful crystals, solve structures, and work on that first publication. 🤞 

This year also brought a bunch of opportunities to attend workshops, meetings, and conferences across the Netherlands, Croatia, Sweden, and Austria. I even presented our work at two conferences and got valuable feedback from some brilliant minds in the field! 

Excited for what’s next! ✨ 

– Nikita Pal 

#PhDversary #PhDJourney #Anniversary #Biocatalysis #BiodeCCodiNNgDN #MSCA #HorizonEU #PhDLife #Crystallography #Science