Festivale de la Cité, Montreux Jazz, & Rain

For the last week, I've been enjoying both the Lausanne Festivale de la Cité and the Montreux Jazz Festival. Both feature good entertainment for free! Not too crowded and not a hassle to get to. On Thursday night was Gustav & son Lonely Heart Attack band (right). I can't quite classify what genre they belong to, somewhat rock with salsa trumpet infusions. The next night the rain stopped just long enough for William White & the Emergency's performance. Even better than the night before! White, as best as I can put it, is a Jack Johnson and John Mayer combo with a Barbados twist--just a chill, just a sweet, and just as charming.

What's unfortunate is that I can't stay at the festivals too late; I have a self-imposed curfew of midnight, based on the metro schedule. I now really regret choosing to live close to the EPFL. Missing the last metro means an hour walking back to my apartment. This wasn't too bad when I was at the Lausanne Festivale, but the Montreux festival lasts a lot longer into the night, sometimes even till 5am!


My only other frustration is the weather; it's been raining on weekends but not on weekdays. So it's gorgeous outside when I'm in lab and miserably cold and wet when I'm not. I want to go hiking and do other outdoor activities, which shouldn't be done in rainy weather. Next weekend I'll be in Bern for the Gurten festival; hopefully the weather will be better this weekend.

over 4 weeks...

Hello All,

Here I am again, with completing almost 4 weeks in Basel.The weeks were very exciting with euro cup coming to an end.....

In these 4 weeks I met Niko, the professor that I will be working with. He introduced me to the other members of the group . It was very exciting. I had many many meeting , discussing the different aspects of the problem that we will be working on. Discussed various dimensions of the problems, the kind of final solution that we wanted and the way to progress.It was interesting and the discussions were different as compared to the group that I work in UIC. The reason of this is also the interdispiclenary kind of research that involves various people.
The work environment is very good, though a bit different from US. In Chicago, me for example, I go to the lab around 1030 or 1100 and leave late, 8 or 9 pm depending on the work load. But here at ETH, I find people coming in early, like at 8 or something and then they take alot of breaks(tea coffee lunch etc).I guess, the working hours boils down to same, but it is fun to work like this as well :)..

They assigned me a office where I could work, and the nice IT people did setup a very nice desktop for me.It is apple mac and the screen is bigger than what I have in Chicago :D..They also very nicely explaned me the working of the systems and printing etc.

The weekend, I spent with some families and friends. The host had arranged very nice bar b que chicken and beef 'kabob' with fresh bread(which was really tasty). Spent most of the saturday with these friends, talking chatting, and ofcourse eating..(I ate alot :D)..Most of the sundays were spent, chatting with friends online and sleeping....
I did go around to see some of the places in basel.Few pics that might interest every one....I will take some more of these.....
I am happy to be here, and am really glad that the jet-lag is finally over.The work place is very good and I plan to go swimming this week with my collegues. Now that is gonna be fun. Just for the record, I never swam in the river before ;) ..and It is getting hot and is killing me...with no airconditioning in the building :(

Trip to Bern on Thursday July 24, 2008

Dear ThinkSwiss Participants,

My name is Muriel and I am the new intern in the Office of Science, Technology and Higher Education at the Embassy of Switzerland in Washington, D.C. I will take over Andrea’s job for the next few months and I look forward reading your impressions. I have been studying International Relations in Geneva, in Germany and in Belgium. If you have any question about Geneva, I would be happy to give you some information.

Your experience seems amazing and you all have fun beside your work. Continue to take all opportunities you have to visit Switzerland and its neighbour countries. It is very useful to share your experiences as it can give inspiration to the other participants.

Trip to Bern on Thursday, July 24, 2008

As announced by Andrea, all researchers who received a ThinkSwiss Research Scholarship or a Travel Grant for the life sciences summer school in Lausanne or Zurich are invited by Presence Switzerland to spend a day in Bern on Thursday, July 24, 2008. You will have the chance to meet other researchers from the U.S., enjoy charming Bern, and learn more about Swiss history, democracy and higher education. The detailed program, as well as some questions regarding the transport and your food preferences have been sent today to you by regular e-mail. Please don’t forget to send me the necessary details for a successful trip. If you have not received it, you can notice me by e-mail: muriel.gampert@eda.admin.ch .

Enjoy and have lots of fun!

Kind regards,

Muriel
Office of Science, Technology and Higher Education
Embassy of Switzerland in Washington, D.C.

More traveling . . .

We've had several visitors the last couple of weeks, so between settling into the lab and traveling through parts of Switzerland with first my sister and brother-in-law and then with a couple of old friends, it has been a busy last couple of weeks! It's been wonderful to have friends and family visit, both to be able to introduce them to Bern, as well as take advantage of their desire to see various parts of Switzerland.

Bern
I'm glad some of you will be able to travel here to see Bern, as it really is a beautiful and unique city. They've done a wonderful job preserving the Altstadt, and as a result, the center of the city is vibrant, beautiful, and always has something new to see and experience. We've been lucky to have (mostly) beautiful weather, so it's been great to take visitors on walking tours of Bern, seeing the churches, parliament, open markets in the squares, rose garden, and of course taking advantage of the many outdoor cafes and beer gardens. And of course, watching people jump off bridges to float down part of the Aare is always entertaining!

And Bern is beautiful both during the day, as seen above, and at night, when so many of the city's buildings and monuments are lit up. Plus, it still never ceases to amaze me how safe this city is, especially in contrast to most American cities. I can walk around in the middle of the night by myself, leave my bike unlocked in front of the grocery store and still have it be there when I come back out, and keep the windows of our apartment wide open without fear. It's a very freeing feeling, and makes me rather sad to think about what our cities have become, since 40 years ago when my mother was growing up in Houston, they were able to do the same . . .

We also managed to be in the right place at the right time, so we were able to see the Tour de Suisse come through Bern!


Gruyeres

We took a nice day-trip to Gruyeres, which if anyone has a few extra hours, I highly recommend! It's a tiny village perched on top of a hill, really with just one street running through the town, from the remains of the old city walls at one end

to the giant Chateau (really a castle) at the other end. The pastoral setting, where you can hear the tinkling of bells on sheep and cattle just adds to the ambience. And of course, you can sit and relax on a restaurant terrace enjoying a pot of fabulous fondue. Another interesting tourism spot . . . the HR Giger Museum and Bar is in an old chalet just below the castle, so for any sci-fi/Alien movie fans (he did all the designs), I recommend checking it out!

Oeschinensee
If you want a beautiful hike up in the Alps, with the reward after a 3 hour, 1000 meter upward climb being a stunning view of a mountain lake, the Alps, and a restaurant complete with a good panache, take a train ride to Kandersteg and then hike up above Oeschinensee. I can't really do it justice with words, so I'll just include photos . . .

. . . and to include another random note, on the advice of the one local accompanying us, try drinking the water from the high-altitude (well above timberline) mountain streams! As a backpacking American, this goes against every piece of advice I've ever received about hiking, but I dubiously agreed with the promise that if I get some wierd bug, he would treat me (helpful to have a physician tag-along). I am still healthy almost 3 weeks later, and it was the best water I've ever tasted.

Basel
Another day trip gave a view of a rather larger Swiss city, and it was nice to see something of Basel other than the train station and airport. We spent a few hours wandering around the Altstadt area of Basel, which had a stunning city hall and a beautiful terrance behind the main church that had a great view of the Rhine. Definitely more hustle and bustle with cars going through than what I'm used to in Bern, and it is hysterical that Basel now seems like a "big city" when I normally live in Houston . . .


And more to come when photos are uploaded on the Montreaux festival and Murten/Avenches.

Research
Somewhere in between all of the above, I've managed to get some work done :) I've been working predominantly with neurosurgery for the first few weeks, as the lab I am working in belongs to them. I've been learning various immunohistochemical stains to identify neurons in rat brains that are positive for several different proteins. Of particular interest are those that indicate new neuronal growth, especially in experiments creating a rat model of intracerebral hemorrhage, a devastating disease of which still so much is unknown. Some of the experiments also involve transplanting stem cells into lesioned areas of the rat brain, with evaluation of functional recovery and extent of transplanted cell survival and differentiation. Many of the stains, immunofluorescence, and other techniques I am learning (western blot, ELISA) we will start applying soon to inner ear stem cells, as we will be harvesting them from some rat specimens later this week. As it is supposed to be the main focus of my summer, I'm excited to begin. I'm also very excited to learn how to surgically drill out an inner ear, so it should be a good week!

Research and Festivals

When I arrived at EPFL the project I am working on was struggling to function. We are developing hydrogels from Polydimethylsiloxide (PDMS) that will be used for microfluidics and studying stem cell progeny behavior. The PDMS formed into a square (by injecting the silicone into a mold) with sides of about 1/2". Small channels are molded into the face of the chip creating what could be described as a microscopic plumbing system. The channels range from 12 to 24 micrometers in diameter and are between 125 and 1000 micrometers long, depending on the chip, which means that all of our work is done under a microscope so we can actually look at these channels. I realize the description is fairly ambiguous, but I will post images so you can see when I'm at EPFL, I have none on my computer.
The channels are formed in a series of switchbacks winding parallel to each other. Near one end there are small "traps" notched out that act as shortcuts for the fluids to move through the channels. We will eventually be flowing solutions of stem cells in medium through the system and the cells will be caught individually in these traps.
Now I will explain the use/purpose of this. Generally when studying stem cell populations it is pretty much impossible to observe the variation in differentiation from one cell to the next since they are all cultured in clusters. This technique will be used to isolate the stem cells individually so you can observe each individual cells differentation and the daughter cell's lineage. This is important for really understanding the behavior of individual stem cells and signaling cues. So, the place where we are in the project is still analyzing the characteristics of our channels when fluids are flushed through them. We have had many problems with this so far, specifically with dust (or whatever type) particles. The traps in our channels are less than 12 micrometers wide, which means that any particle that happens to get into our PDMS will clog our plumbing and make our chip useless. We have been fighting this for about two weeks now and I have finally made some progress on cleaning the chips and making them more reliable. When I started, nearly every chip would clog before we could gather quantitative measurements. Now we are nearly at a 66% success rate. Hopefully this will continue to improve as I try new methods to clean and keep the chips sterile.
I promise, this will all make much more sense when I post a photo of the chip under the microscope haha.

So, until then, I will move onto the Swiss life.

Ouchy

Since I have been here I have spent a couple of weekends in Lausanne, going to ouchy to read by the lake and seeing festivals. Three weekends ago was the fete de la musique in lausanne. I spent the day listening to various types of music throughout the 36 different stages in the city. There was constantly music being played at every point in the city of every genre. Afterward, I went out and experienced the true nightlife of Lausanne and went out to a bar/dance club until closing time at 5:00 am. This is atypical of what I am used to, coming from Utah, since all bars and clubs are closed at 2:00 am at latest, some are earlier. There is also a much larger variety of music played in the clubs here compared to the clubs in Utah. I think I could get used to the night life in Switzerland :).

Last week I also took a trip to Heidelberg, Germany, which was absolutely amazing! I loved the city there and the geography, despite the absence of the Alps. This was my first time to Germany and it left a very good impression. I also took the time to go look at the old house where Mark Twain used to live, not far from the local castle. The city has probably five towering churches which were worth seeing and a beautiful library. The buildings were amazing, many of them being decorated with gold flakes. The castle was amazing, and home to the largest wine barrel in Germany (possibly Europe..?), complete with a dance floor on top of it. It was a beautiful city, which I highly recommend. It was really amazing being in a city which has been around longer than my country has existed haha.

This week marked the beginning of the Montreux Jazz Festival. Being a fan of Jazz music, I have found myself grinning for hours on end while listening to the musicians playing on the various stages. I will not be going to any of the concerts which are not free seeing as how the price of each ticket is over $200 in most cases. Aside from the music, there are booths of souvenirs and food for nearly a mile down a walkway, on the way toward Chateu de Chillon (which is worth seeing!!) if you go by foot from Montreux. There are people on the side playing music or painting, and are quite entertaining to observe. I watched some guys make complete paintings using spray paint and paper, no brushes... and they turn out incredibly good! The festival goes until the 19th of July, and I recommend going for at least one night! After the bands are done for the evening (around 12:30-1:00) DJ's take the stage at local clubs (like the MDH club and Montreux Jazz Cafe) and play music until 5:00 am. The first night out I stayed until they closed, last night I came back to Lausanne early (at 3:00) so i would be refreshed enough to go on a hike today in Noiraigue, which has some terrain that is supposed to resemble the grand canyon. Unfortunately, It was raining incredibly hard this morning so I decided not to go this weekend. Even now as I am typing this I can hear drums from the music festival which is simultaneously going on in Lausanne. Switzerland is quite the eventful place in the summer!!

Italy, Rigi, Lucerne

Two weekends ago I went to Italy with my mother, who visited me in Europe for a week. We took a sleeper train from Zurich to Rome, and we could tell as soon we got there that Italy is nothing like Switzerland. The train stations are completely different. The attendants act as if they really don't want to have anything to do with you, and the trains themselves were never on time. We nearly missed our train back to Zurich because our train from Naples to Rome was nearly 2 hours late! It was a great relief for me to come back to fully functional, clean, and convenient Switzerland, but my first trip ever to Italy overall was definitely interesting and worth it.

Back in Switzerland, the next weekend we climbed Mt. Rigi outside Lucerne. The morning low-lying clouds were very thick at the summit for a few hours, but by the afternoon it completely cleared and we had the fantastic views we had hoped for. After that we descended to the small towns at the base of Rigi on the lake. That was the probably the most beautiful lakeshore I had ever seen, with the pretty buildings and gardens, the mountains, the old-fashioned ferries, flowers everywhere, and clear blue waters. From there we took a boat to Lucerne, which was also very beautiful. We walked around the town near the river and to the glacier park before returning to Zurich. The next day I took Mom to Lausanne and Geneva so she could see the French-speaking side of Switzerland, which was also fun.

As for work, things have really ramped up for me. I have 4 different projects now that I am trying to undertake all at once. Hopefully I will make significant progress on them before I leave... in less than 3 weeks! To be honest I really wish I could stay much longer, even if I had even more work piled up on me. They really take good care of me at ETH and the city of Zurich is such a fantastic place to live in compared to Houston. I don't know how much I'd like the cold winter, but I do enjoy skiing so there would be at least that highlight.

And as a sidenote on economics and research in Switzerland in general, since that is a topic I see is currently in discussion, I would like to add this. Before I came to Switzerland I was under the impression that Europe was no longer an international epicenter of research and technological industry, and that the US and Asia had taken most of the reigns. I had in my mind a research lab where work would progress gradually and slowly, where everyone would be taking frequent vacations and sipping espressos and lattes on the side whenever possible. And although the Swiss definitely do drink a lot of coffee, my original idea in mind was proven completely wrong. I think they mostly take a coffee break to keep well caffeine levels high for a good life set to the motto of "work hard, play hard". Even for how cheap their higher-education is due to high-favor in the eyes of the federal government, they do not take any of this for granted. They also keep the labs very well-maintained, being very careful to maximize the lifetimes of their subsidized equipments. Their clean-rooms and even their general-use labs make the labs at Rice look like pig pens. This disciplined work-ethic makes it easier to make sure work proceeds on schedule, as they don't have to worry as much about health/environmental hazards or whether or not a machine will be in good enough order to carry out accurate experiments. It's why the Swiss are still well reputed for precision and reliability in engineering and their products are in ever higher demand, since not in most other places are the nearly as concentrated on these slight details that could eventually lead to a less dependable product. But they would not personally admit that, they don't have the time to boast.

The students will work hard all week and when they have a weekend or vacation to themselves, they're either spending time doing something active with their family or friends or travelling around to Italy, Germany, or somewhere else interesting. No sitting at home just watching TV or vegging out completely. Sometimes they're even on military service, which I at first I thought was pretty silly for a forever-sworn neutral country to make mandatory, but that may attribute to their general attitude of hard-work and modesty.

It's almost as if a Rice Honor Code (those of you who are Owls will know what I mean) applies for the entire Swiss population that keeps everyone doing their duty from picking trash up off the street if they see it to paying for public municipal transport even if they know that ticket-officers almost never check them. They are also very friendly towards non-Swiss, despite what other countries have lambasted them as anti-foreigner since they reported the infamous SVP "black-sheep" ads that you sometimes see. They all treat you with ultimate respect and even take the time to learn 1, 2 or even 3 languages other than their own mother-tongue just to be able to communicate with non-locals.

When it comes to finances, they do not spend lavishly on personal luxuries like fancy cars just to show off. They prefer to do whatever is efficient and whatever is least taxing on others. That means being responsible, by taking a bus to work and paying prices that are more near to what we in the US should also be paying for gasoline. I think being in the Alps with it's rapidly shrinking glaciers and relatively difficult cargo-access has given the Swiss a better idea of what wasteful consumption can lead to in effect than what we misbehaving Americans know.

So again, it was a fantastic eye-opening experience for me to come here, and I am very grateful for it. I can't thank enough the Embassy of Switzerland, NSF, ETH, my professors, and my student colleagues and even though I'm not done yet I'd like to remind them if they are reading this now that this is really one of the best pleasures of my life and it would not have been possible otherwise.

PS. Anyone recommend visiting Stuttgart/Munich or Prague? I am looking into them as possible weekend trips before I go.

Research, Doctorat à la Suisse

This is an extension of Corinne's blog about education and the differences of my research experience at Rice versus here at the EPFL. For me, this summer is also a time to start looking at graduate schools. Besides just looking online, I've been asking advice from the post-docs and graduate students that I work with. Talking to them has given me a basis for understanding differences between the Swiss and American systems in day-to-day observations. This probably applies more to the sciences, especially bioengineering (my focus) than other academics.

Most students pursuing a doctorat are required to have a masters degree. Like Corinne said, most Swiss 'undergraduates' study for five years and receive a masters. It seems that the masters degree here is much more class intensive, rather than research intensive, which allows doctorat students to do full-time research. In contrast, many American (bioengineering) students can enter a PhD program after receiving a bachelor's degree and would spend the first year taking courses to specialize in a particular area. Thus, without the time-consuming classes, doctorat students in Switzerland finish almost always in four years, whereas Americans take closer to five years. (Or unlike Britain, where it's a strict three years, after which funding for the student is cut.)

After the researching for years, the student gives a dissertation. In the States, anyone, usually friends and lab lab members, can attend the dissertation, but may be required to leave for the oral examination by the student's advising committee. Here in Switzerland, there is first a private defense--just the student and his/her committee. Then, the public defense, open to all of Switzerland, occurs; this is based on the logic that the public has a right to be informed about the research because they, as taxpayers, have paid for the education. The public defense is more of a celebration, where the degree is awarded, and when the rest of the lab can roast the new dotorate (so I've been told). A Swedish post-doc here in the lab told me his defense was followed by a celebration similar to that of a small wedding: they rented a room, served drinks, maybe a small meal, etc.

Financing the education--one of the biggest differences between the Swiss and American systems. As Corinne mentioned, student debt in American is very common, unfortunately so. Here, however, tuition is minor cost; in fact, according to the EPFL website, doctorat students don't pay the university. American students are charged tuition, but this is usually covered, as is the cost of (a modest) living, by fellowships and grants. I haven't gotten any numbers what a typical Swiss graduate student's cost of living is, but I'm sure it's higher than an American student's.

The lab's funding, in terms of equipment and such, seems much more generous than in America. My lab at Rice is quite large and considered well-funded; there's 13 graduate students , 3 post-docs, a lab manager, and a lab technician. In contrast, Dr. Swartz's lab has 6 post-docs, 8 graduate students, a secretary, a lab manager, and 2 lab technicians. I've been extremely impressed with the amount of equipment and personnel available to the lab. It seems that there's a greater emphasis on research here in Switzerland than in the States.

Swiss university's also boasts a large number of international students. My lab has 11 different nationalities represented. I hear at least 5 different languages a day! The lab director is American, so English is the principal language. This makes it easier for me to understand, which is critical for successful experiments, but I haven't had a lot of opportunities to speak French, to be fully immersed.

As far as my cultural experience, let the festivals begin! I'm getting ready for Lausanne's Festivale de la Cité that starts this weekend. Most museums here are free the first Saturday of every month, so I'll go to a couple this weekend. After that, I hope to spend my remaining weekends traveling and seeing the rest of Switzerland!