Author: Boris Cesnik

Have you recently witnessed an extraordinary scientific breakthrough led by a postdoc here at ISTA?
Now’s your chance to make their talent shine!

Nominate an exceptional ISTA postdoc whose research has made a remarkable impact — and help us celebrate the vital role postdocs play in driving innovation and discovery!

💶 Prize: 3,500 euros (pre-tax)
🎉 Celebration: The awardee will be honored during a special Institute Colloquium on 21 September 2026, as part of Postdoc Appreciation Week!

🗓 Deadline for nominations: June 30, 2026
📩 Send your nominations to: ia_postdoc@ista.ac.at

Rules for nominations:

1. The nominated research must have been conducted while the candidate was employed as a postdoc at ISTA and should not have been published more than 12 months before the nomination deadline.
2. Each nomination must include a letter (≤2 pages) by at least one ISTA PI, explaining why the research is exceptional — placing it within the context of the field and clarifying the postdoc’s specific contribution if it was a collaborative project. Postdocs are encouraged to discuss potential nominations with their PIs.

Required materials:

• 📝 Nomination letter (max. 2 pages)
• 📚 CV of the nominee (max. 4 pages), highlighting the nominated work
• 📎 (Optional) Supporting materials — patents, grants, or public highlights related to the nominated work (max. 2 pages)

If someone came to mind while reading this, don’t wait — that’s the postdoc we’re looking for!
Submit your nomination to ia_postdoc@ista.ac.at and help celebrate the incredible achievements of our ISTA postdocs! 🚀

Would you like to explore what your path from academia to consulting could look like?

Then True North Scholarship event hosted by Bain might be the perfect opportunity for you. From June 11–12, 2026, the virtual event will introduce you to Bain as an employer, their unique culture, and the world of consulting. Learn more about your career opportunities in consulting with a PhD degree and sharpen your skills in a case cracking workshop and mock interviews.

In addition, you will have the chance to receive one of three scholarships worth €5,000 each.

The event is open to female PhD students and postdocs from all academic disciplines.

Curious to learn more? Apply here by May 3, 2026.

As part of the PDO’s effort to boost venues to mingle, network and have fun among our postdocs community, Brainfood Breaks lunctime talk series is back!

THIS TIME IS ABOUT FELLOWSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS AND MORE FELLOWSHIPS!

🎉 YOU’RE INVITED! 🎉

📅 DATE: Wednesday, 15 April

🕛 TIME: 12:00 – 13:00
📍 WHERE: Downtown, Central Building

We cordially invite you to the first lunchtime talk of 2026 to:

✔️ Get to know postdocs who have been successful in applying for an external fellowship, in particular FWF Esprit, MSCA and EMBO.
✔️ Discover their projects and what tips they have for putting together a successful application.
✔️ Mingle and connect.
✔️ …and most importantly, HAVE FUN (and FOOD)!

🍽️ ON THE MENU:

FREE BUFFET LUNCH + Rapid-Fire Research Talks by three of our third-party funded postdoctoral fellows:

🎤 FEED YOUR BRAIN WITH:

Carolina Barata

Vicoso Group, FWF Esprit Fellow

Yuanrong Pei

Friml Group, EMBO Alumna and now MSCA Fellow

Shaoting Ren

Pellicciotti Group – MSCA Fellow

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🔗 REGISTER BY APRIL 8^TH
We need to know how many stomachs to feed!
👉 https://postdoc.pages.ist.ac.at/ninja-forms/28ldlj

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Let’s feed our minds, our networks, and our bellies.
⏰ PROGRAM

12:00 – Welcome from PDO
12:05 – Carolina Barata
12:12 – Yuanrong Pei

12:19 – Shaoting Ren
12:26 – Q&A
12:36 – FREE BUFFET LUNCH 🍲
13:00 – End

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🎯 ARE YOU PLANNING TO APPLY FOR A FELLOWSHIP?

Why is it important to apply for fellowships? What support did they receive during the process? Are they receiving extra funds?

📌 Great chance to ask questions to current postdocs in person!

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See you on April 15^th! 👋

The PDO is happy to announce the second Postdocs plenary session!

In this forthcoming session we would like to talk about…ta-dah!

Career development: opportunities and resources at ISTA – presented by our Career Development Expert, Valentina Riva

Please join us for an after lunch get-together with coffee/tea and sweets before you return to your project:

Date: Wed 18 March 2026

Time: 13:00 – 14:00

Venue: Big Seminar Room B, Ground Floor, Sunstone Building – I23.EG.102

Please register your attendance here!

PROGRAM OF THE SESSION:

• Valentina will present the full program of training offer, workshops and other venues to boost your skills and more for this calendar year.
• Giorgia from the Graduate School Office will also present new teaching opportunities at ISTA!
• Q&A and discussion

DON’T MISS IT!

Also feel free to add in the registration form any questions, comments or concerns we should be addressing in the forthcoming session partaking Career Development after having reviewed the new ISTA Career Development website:

https://career-development.ista.ac.at

All postdocs are welcome!

PLEASE NOTE: hybrid arrangements possible. Please indicate your wish to attend online on the registration form.

We would like to thank you for your collaboration and look forward to listening to your voices and contributions soon!

Join us on Monday, February 02 for a talk by Postdoc Award Winner Kirti Jain. She will be speaking on “Basal Gene Expression Dynamics in Bacteria”.

The event begins with a reception in the foyer of RLH at 11:00 AM, followed by the talk at 11:30 AM. We look forward to seeing you there!

Kirti (now Alum from Guet group) is one of the two winners alongside Shengduo Xu (also Alum, from Ibañez group) of the new Postdoc Award at ISTA.

Please join the rest of the ISTA community to celebrate her achievements and also take advantage of this opportunity to have a chat with her afterwards about her accomplishments beyond ISTA now as Alum!

Click here to add this talk to your calendar.

The multiple antibiotic resistance (mar) operon is one of the largest regulons in Escherichia coli. The mar locus encodes an autorepressor, MarR; an autoactivator, MarA; and MarB, a protein of unknown function and via MarA regulates a wide variety of downstream targets involved in cellular processes such as efflux, pH response, porin regulation, etc. Although this system has been extensively studied for its role in antibiotic resistance, the role of basal expression has largely been overlooked and dismissed as promoter leakiness.

Our work explores the basal expression mode of the mar operon and shows that it is dynamic, consisting of rare stochastic gene expression pulses. These pulses maximize phenotypic variability in wild-type populations and, unexpectedly, transiently accelerate cellular elongation rates. At the molecular level, this behavior is linked to an unusual yet evolutionarily conserved GTG start codon in marR, suggesting that natural selection has preserved this dynamic expression pattern across many related gut bacteria. Together, these findings demonstrate that even so-called “leaky” uninduced gene expression can be a selected feature with meaningful ecological and physiological consequences, reshaping our understanding of gene regulation in microbes.

The PDO is happy to launch the Postdocs plenary sessions starting January 2026.

We would like to invite all postdocs to have an open conversation with the PDO on several topics that we trust have significant impact on your life at ISTA.

The main aims of the sessions are to:

• Boost institutional transparency.
• Provide a participatory channel for respectful discussion and conversation among your peers and with the PDO.
• To acquire constructive feedback to develop related aspects of postdocs’ lifecycle.
• Act as a re-fresher for important topics.

In this first session we would like to talk about…ta-dah!

• Postdoc employment rules at ISTA
• In particular: Contract extensions

Please join us for a morning get-together before you kickstart your scientific day at ISTA on:

Date: Tue 27 January 2026

Time: 09:15 – 10:15 AM

Venue: Big Seminar Room B, Ground Floor, Sunstone Building – I23.EG.102

Please register your attendance here!

Also feel free to add in the registration form any questions, comments or concerns we should be addressing in the forthcoming session partaking postdoc employment and contract extension.

More info on the current rules and processes can be found here:

Working conditions of postdocs at ISTA

Contract extensions

All postdocs are welcome!

We will start the session with a very concise presentation on the topic (approx. 8-10 mins), after which we will open the floor for Q&A and discussion.

We would like to thank you for your collaboration and look forward to listening to your voices and contributions soon!

🎉 On November 12, 2025, the first-ever Vienna Postdoc Career Day will kick off, marking a unique collaborative effort among seven renowned Viennese institutions. This event is a powerful signal of our commitment to supporting postdocs in their professional development and opening up new perspectives. Our shared vision is to enhance the visibility, connectivity, and sustainability of the postdoc phase.

Join us for an enriching day filled with workshops, panel discussions, and networking opportunities.

REGISTER NOW! 👉 https://cc.lbg.ac.at/careerday

The Vienna Postdoc Career Day will feature inspiring role models, industry experts, and fellow postdocs from across institutions.

This event is open and free of charge for all postdocs from Austrian universities and research organizations.

📅 When: November 12, 2025
🔗 Register: Sign up for one or multiple sessions by November 4
📍 Where: Van-Swieten-Saal, Van-Swieten-Gasse 1a, 1090 Vienna

What’s on the Agenda?

Careers in Academia:

• From challenges to chances: Shaping your academic career with mentoring
• Role Models in Leadership: Insights from LExA Nominees
• Networking Lunch: Careers Inside Academia
•  

Careers Beyond Academia:

• From Academia to Industry: Identifying Your Transferable Skills
• Beyond Academia: Careers at Bain & Company, a global leading management consulting company
• Apero Networking: The expanded scientific community as an employer

Don’t miss out on this fantastic opportunity

Let’s make the postdoc phase more vibrant and connected. See you there!

🧠🍴 BRAINFOOD BREAK🍴🧠
Postdocs gotta eat too!

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Dear Postdocs,

As part of the Postdoc Appreciation Week (PAW), The PDO cordially invites you to the second lunchtime talk for our postdoc community to:

✔️ Get to know other postdocs
✔️ Discover other researchers’ projects
✔️ Mingle and connect
✔️ …and most importantly, HAVE FUN (and FOOD)!

🎉 2^ND EVENT – YOU’RE INVITED! 🎉

📅 DATE: Wednesday, 17 September
🕛 TIME: 12:00 – 13:00
📍 WHERE: Downtown, Central Building

🍽️ ON THE MENU:

FREE BUFFET LUNCH + Rapid-Fire Research Talks by two of our courageous postdocs who were brave enough to test life outside Academia in a secondment in industry and entrepreneurship!

🎤 FEED YOUR BRAIN WITH:

Sergio Lembo
Sixt Group, INiTS – Vienna, Austria

Rajesh Jethwa
Freunberger Group, Basquevolt S.A. – Vitoria Gasteiz, Spain

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🔗 REGISTER BY SEPT 10^TH
We need to know how many stomachs to feed!
👉REGISTER HERE!!!!

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Let’s feed our minds, our networks, and our bellies.
⏰ PROGRAM

12:00 – Welcome from PDO
12:05 – Sergio Lembo
12:12 – Rajesh Jethwa
12:19 – Q&A & Discussion
12:30 – FREE BUFFET LUNCH 🍲
13:00 – End

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🎯 DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS LIKE OUT THERE?!

Has the experience changed their career trajectories? What was the outcome of their secondment? Did they enjoy the experience? Are they having a second thought about it?
📌 Great chance to ask questions to current postdocs in person!

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See you on Sept 17^th! 👋

NEXT EVENT:

If you are looking for collaborator(s) or are already pursuing a collaboration and would like to present your project at the next Brainfood Breaks events in 2026, please sign up here!

PDO is delighted to announce that ISTA will be participating in the Postdoc Appreciation Week (PAW) for the first time this year! 

 This international initiative involves institutions worldwide organizing activities for and with postdocs. PAW will take place from September 15 to 19, so please mark and block your calendars! 

PROGRAM

🧠🍴 BRAINFOOD BREAKS 🍴🧠
Postdocs gotta eat too!

The PDO cordially invites you to a brand-new series of informal lunchtime talks for postdocs to:

✔️ Get to know other postdocs
✔️ Discover other researchers’ projects
✔️ Mingle and connect
✔️ …and most importantly, HAVE FUN (and FOOD)!

🎉 1ST EVENT – YOU’RE INVITED! 🎉

📅 DATE: Wednesday, 16 July
🕛 TIME: 12:00 – 13:00
📍 WHERE: Downtown, Central Building

🍽️ ON THE MENU:
FREE BUFFET LUNCH + Rapid-Fire Research Talks by our amazing NOMIS-ISTA Postdoc Fellows!

🎤 FEED YOUR BRAIN WITH:

Louise Fouqueau
Barton Group, ISTA & Willi Group, Univ. of Basel

Andrea Navas-Olive
Jonas Group & Vogels Group, ISTA

Andrei Militaru
Fink Group & Hosten Group, ISTA

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🔗 REGISTER BY JULY 9th
We need to know how many stomachs to feed!
👉 https://postdoc.pages.ist.ac.at/brainfood-breaks

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Let’s feed our minds, our networks, and our bellies.
⏰ PROGRAM

12:00 – Welcome from PDO
12:05 – Fellow 1: Louise Fouqueau
12:12 – Fellow 2: Andrea Navas-Olive
12:19 – Fellow 3: Andrei Militaru
12:26 – Q&A & Discussion
12:36 – FREE BUFFET LUNCH 🍲
13:00 – End

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🎯 DID YOU KNOW?
If your contract started after June 13th, 2024, you may be eligible to apply for the current NOMIS-ISTA fellowship call!
📌 Great chance to ask questions to current fellows in person!

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See you on July 16th! 👋

NEXT EVENT: September 2025

If you are looking for collaborator(s) or are already pursuing a collaboration and would like to present your project at the next Brainfood Breaks events, please sign up here!