The International Doctoral Programme Discovering treatment from biomedical research (DISCOVER), based at Biotech Research and Innovation Centre, University of Copenhagen, has recruited and is currently training 23 early-stage researchers from 14 nationalities. The programme provides researchers not only with excellent scientific training in basic biomedical research, primarily within cancer and neurological diseases, but also enhanced training in transferable skills. Peer mentoring, career mentoring, and career development activities are also key elements of the programme.
To innovatively address the increasing complexity of societal challenges, there is a growing need for researchers to enter interdisciplinary collaborations and to communicate and exploit their research. The past decades have presented great breakthroughs in the fundamental knowledge required for understanding and diagnosing many diseases. However, the ability to move basic discoveries towards new treatments is lagging the pace of discovery. With DISCOVER, our OVERALL OBJECTIVE is to empower diverse research talent to become creative and responsible researchers, with an ability to translate their biomedical research into clinical value. DISCOVER’s ambition is to inspire and enable fellows to a research career bridging basic and clinical research.
Overall, DISCOVER provides a structural and intellectual framework for the fellows to develop strong research skills, diligence, ambition and creativity. All fellows work on projects within biomedicine, providing new knowledge of important biological processes and disease mechanisms, that potentially can lead to improved diagnosis, prognosis and treatment modalities for patients.