As the heat wave continues to sweep across Europe, we’d like to share some tips on keeping your lab and living spaces as cool as possible:

1. Control Sunlight: During the hottest hours, it’s crucial to keep your windows closed and lower the blinds to prevent hot air from infiltrating your space. These measures can help reduce indoor temperatures by up to 6°C.
2. Strategic Ventilation: Throughout the day, aim to keep windows either closed or slightly ajar. However, in the evening and at dawn, when the outside temperature is cooler than indoors, it’s an excellent opportunity to fully open doors and windows – but make sure that the security principles are respected.
3. Stay Hydrated: Remember to drink at least 1 liter of water daily to keep yourself well-hydrated during the hot weather.
4. Laboratory Safety: When working at the laboratory bench, maintain your safety standards. While it’s common to wear lighter clothing in the summer, ensure that you do not leave your feet, legs, or arms uncovered when handling chemicals or products. Prioritize your safety at all times.
5. Seek Help if Needed: If at any point you or someone is feeling unwell or experiencing discomfort due to the heat, please don’t hesitate to call 115 (= 021 692 20 00 from a mobile)

Further information on the UNISEP website: https://www.unil.ch/unisep/home/menuinst/sante-au-travail/canicule.html

Workshop “Community building”

The goal of this workshop is to suggest actions that will promote social cohesion at the CIG by discussing what makes a thriving scientific community. We will (i) define goals for the CIG community, (ii) analyze existing social units and means that the CIG employs for community building, (iii) identify strengths and weaknesses of the CIG community, and (iv) propose concrete and sustainable actions to promote the CIG community.

Aleksandar Vjestica and Johannes Larsch

Workshop “Gen-Ethics”

In this workshop, we will discuss many aspects of the ethical questions surrounding genetics. Key topics include privacy, consent, data security, and the societal impact of large-scale genomic databases. We will also reflect on how to responsibly handle unexpected or sensitive findings in genetic research.

Samuel Moix & Théo Cavinato

Workshop “Publication process”

The goals of this workshop are (i) to present various models of scientific publishing, both established and new, (ii) highlight advantages and disadvantages of these models, (iii) have an open discussion of our and your personal experiences in publishing,
and (iv) consider how we might act (individually and/or collectively) to bring about positive change in the process.

Richard Benton & Diego Hartasanchez Frenk

Workshop “Sustainability”

Join us for a collaborative workshop to spark “ground-up” ideas for making both wet and dry lab research in the Genopode more sustainable.

We’ll explore practical actions, learn from neighboring departments, and create a shared list of initiatives—published on the CIG wiki—that could lead to real change in how we work.

Maria C. Gambetta

Workshop “AI for scientists”

Nicolas Salamin

To save on delivery costs, orders from Merk, Sarstedt and Milan are gathered and placed on Thursday 2:00pm.

For this same reason and because of inflation on logistics costs, we are going to gather orders from Promega, Bioconcept, Reactolab and VWR as well.

Urgent orders that cannot wait the usual placement of orders on Tuesday 11:00am or Thursday 2:00pm must be pointed out to cig_magasin@unil.ch to be taken care of faster.

Further information on the CIG intranet: https://wiki.unil.ch/fbm-cig/books/ordering-system/page/bulk-ordering-policy