Internship placements for outstanding PhD candidates
The goals of the internship program include strengthening links between higher education institutions and non-academic organizations across biotechnology sectors, including health, marine, industrial biotech, and innovation. Students are given the opportunity to receive training that is relevant to the professional world and working life.
The program has been steadily expanding its network of host organizations internationally. This year, interns will head to Denmark, Sweden, and Slovenia, in addition to locations around Norway.
Here are the nine PhD students selected for the Digital Life Norway PhD internship program in 2023:
- Elisa Marquez-Zavala (Department of Biotechnology and Food Science, NTNU) will conduct her internship at Acies Bio (Ljubljana, Slovenia) with the project “Simulation and Techno-Economic Analysis of a Biorefinery Producing Bulk Chemicals from Methanol.” Acies Bio is a microbial biotechnology company that develops new bioproducts and production processes and is a partner in the ERA CoBioTech project MCM4SB, led by Digital Life Norway Scientific Director Prof. Trygve Brautaset (IBT).
- Jai Kishan Rajak (Department of Chemical Engineering, NTNU) will join Cealtech (Stavanger) to work on applications of graphene oxide and functionalized graphene oxide in medicine and health. Cealtech focuses on developing methods to incorporate graphene into existing engineering materials, to achieve specific mechanical, electrical, or thermal characteristics.
- Marion Silvana Fernandez Berrocal (Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, NTNU) will head to GreinDX, which is located at Oslo Science Park (Forskningsparken). Her project, “On-chip high-throughput cell screening with surface modified peptide libraries,” is part of GreinDX’s mission to detect cancer earlier and to increase survival rates.
- Two students, Katharina Zürbes (Department of Chemical Engineering, NTNU) and Friederike Schäfer (Department of Structural Engineering, NTNU) will both be heading to the BioInnovation Institute (BII) in Copenhagen. Their projects will focus on bringing ideas to life and the research-to-market process, including a focus on BII’s Women's Health Initiative (WHI).
- Anna Bergan Dahl (Doctoral Research Fellow, Institute for Experimental Medical Research, OUS) is going to Testa Center in Sweden with the project: “Novel techniques in production and purification of vectors for gene therapy delivery.”
- Parveen Gartan (Department of Chemistry, UiB) will conduct the internship at AstraZeneca with the project “Breaking it down: Molecular Fragmentation-Based Calculation of Absolute Binding Free Energies.”
- Belén García Pascual (Department of Mathematics, UiB) will join DNV with the project: Using large language models: Tabular data generation
- Clizia Russotto (Department of Medical Biology, UiT) will conduct her internship at Vectron Biosolutions with the project: “Recombinant protein expression in E. coli and other microbial hosts.”
Digital Life Norway PhD internship program
“The industry internship program presents a remarkable chance for aspiring researchers to venture into career avenues beyond academia,” said Rosalie Zwiggelaar, Senior adviser for training and career development in DLN and coordinator of the DLN Research School. “The experience acquired by these doctoral candidates is highly valued, and a number of past participants have transitioned into successful roles within the industry.”
This is the fourth round of the internship program, which has so far given 24 PhD students the opportunity to explore biotechnology outside the academic setting.
PhD candidates through the Digital Life Norway PhD internship program have previously completed internships at AstraZeneca, ClexBio, Seaweed Solutions, Amicoat, IDL Biotech, STIM, Vectron Biosolutions, Xellia, GlucoSet, Theracule, Jotun, BioMar, MycoTeam, ArcticZymes AS, BioInnovation Institute Fonden, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, GreinDX, Morefish and others. This year’s interns include PhD students from NTNU, UiB, OUS, and UiT.
Selected students’ scientific backgrounds range from microbiology, molecular biology, neuroscience, medical imaging, aquaculture and food science, to mathematics, statistics, molecular modelling, and more.
NTNU Biotechnology and NORBIS Research School are also sponsors of this year’s Digital Life Norway PhD internship program.
Learn more about the Digital Life Norway PhD internship program here.
For more information, please contact
Media: Christoffer Hals
Industry: Elisabeth Hyldbakk
PhD students: Rosalie Zwiggelaar