The goal of secondments is to provide direct hands-on research and cutting edge technology experience to ICEBIO doctoral candidates. The ICEBIO DCs will gain experience with innovation in academic and SME contexts and focus on a research problem that fits with their individual PhD projects.
As ICEBIO fellows carry out their secondments, information about their experiences will be provided here.
26/11/2023 - 02/12/2023
During my first secondment, I analysed 20 samples of snow, ice and glacial runoff waters using a phosphate analyser capable of reaching limits of detection down to 5 nM. I was introduced to the method and helped with the analyses by Dr. Beatriz Gill Olivas from Aarhus University. In addition to that DC6 Klara Köhler assisted me in using a Gallery ThermoFisher nutrient analyser to further analyse nitrogen species and dissolved silica in runoff waters samples. Lastly, I enjoyed the friendly atmosphere of the Christmas party at Aarhus university at the end of a productive week.
03/03/2024 - 16/03/2024
During my second secondment to AU, I analysed a second set of supraglacial samples, this time coming from a winter fieldwork in Svalbard during 2023. In addition to phosphate, this time I also conducted organic digestions to measure the total dissolved P. This way the organic fraction of the total dissolved P can be calculated.
11/05/2025 - 29/05/2025
During this 3 week long secondment, I analysed surface ice and snow samples collected in February 2025 in Svalbard and August 2024 in Greenland. I measured dissolved inorganic and organic P, as well as nitrate, nitrite, ammonia and total dissolved N with the new low level nutrient analyser built by Dr. Beatriz Gill Olivas. It was also a great opportunity to spend some quality time with other IceBio DCs, as many of us were at AU at the same time.
03/05/2025- 29/06/2025
During my stay, I sequenced the whole Genome of Hydrurus foetidus using the Promethion device available in the laboratory. This allowed me to obtain very long reads to ease the genome assembly process and resolve sequence repetitions in the genome. Once the assembly was performed, contigs were split into eukaryotic, prokaryotic, mitochondrial and chloroplastic contigs until further analysis. I also extracted, prepared and sequenced Hydrurus foetidus RNA samples to perform a differential gene expression analysis across seasons. Those RNA sequences will also be used to annotate the genome previously sequenced and assembled.
08/06/2025- 15/06/2025
Together with DC6 Klara Köhler, I spent a week at ClearWater Sensors in Southampton (UK). We closely worked with Dr. Alex Beaton, head of R&D at the company, who gave us an in depth training on nutrient sensors deployment and maintenance, as well as data QC and analysis. We also saw how the whole company works and how their sensors are developed and manufactured. We finished off the week with two days of intense science discussions with Prof. Martyn Tranter in Bath.
02/02/2025-15/02/2025
For my secondment, I joined Klara Köhler (DC6) at AU in Risø, Denmark to perform a series of geochemical extractions of Fe, Si, P, and N from glacial flours collected in the French Alps. The extractions were followed by photometric analysis using the Gallery Analyzer. We plan to use these data to investigate links between microbial community characteristics and nutrients available in the flours.
26/05/2025- 04/06/2025
For my secondment, I brought DNA that I had already extracted from about 55 isolates (both bacteria and fungi), and we did whole genome sequencing on them using nanopore. We ended up with a huge amount of data, which we then assembled and annotated.
After that, we started digging into the data to figure out what kind of information we want to explore further. I also brought some environmental samples with me—these were collected by me from the Stubai glaciers last September—and I did the DNA extractions from those samples while I was at Riso. We have stored that DNA and (hopefully!) we'll be able to do some metagenomic studies on it during my next visit.