The exciting second LightDyNAmics webinar took place yesterday, 22 July 2020 over Zoom. All ESRs and PIs were able to enjoy three interesting talks from three of our ESRs. Elena (ESR9) started the webinar with her talk on "Site-specific phot-oxidation of the isolated adenosine-5'-triphosphate dianion determined by photoelectron imaging". The talk was based on research she performed in collaboration with Davide (ESR10). Eveliina (ESR11) then gave an interesting update on her research titled "Damage and repari of DNA containing new epigenetic bases fC and caC". Mark (ESR8) rounded off the webinar with his discussion of the Archer et al. paper "A dinuclear ruthenium (ii) phototherapeutic that targets duplex and quadruplex DNA".

The LightDyNAmics training concept includes online modules, one of which are webinares, in which a team of ESRs present either their work or a recently published peer-reviewed paper which is of interest to the network. The aim is to train the presentation skills of the ESRs and share knowledge within the network.
The first of these webinars was held on 23 April 2020 and drew attendance  not only from the immediate network but also from other interested scientists and colleagues of the beneficiaries. The webinar was organised by Piotr (ESR1), Davide (ESR10) and Vangelis (ESR7) and supported by James Green from the coordinator's side. Piotr and Davide both provided an update on their recent research on "excited state deactivation of uridine and 5-methyluridine" and "quinolizidine-spiropyran isomerisaton and G-Quadruplex binding" respectively, while Vangelis provided a review of a recent paper on G-Quadruplexes of broad interest to the network. The webinare was very well by the 44 participants and we are already looking forward to the next one.

Last Week, from 17-21 February 2020, the first Technology Training Camp for ESRs took place in Vienna, Austria. The event was hosted Leticia Gonzalez' team of the University of Vienna. The Technology Training Camp has been designed to establish a common ground in experimental and computational approaches to explore light-DNA interaction. Establishing such common ground enables the ESR’s to better collaborate and successfully integrate computational and experimental approaches in their work.

While the consortium originally had planned to organise two seperate events, one for computational and one for the experimental approaches, we decided to merge the two trainings into one. This allowed for the better integration of computational and experimental training with significant pedagogical benefits. The event included lectures in the morning and laboratory exercises in the afternoon. The ESRs enjoyed  not only the off state-of-the-art training but also the social aspects which are never forgotten in any of our meetings. Thanks to Leticia and Davide and the entire team at UNIVIE, the ESRs and PIs alike got to experience the city of Vienna at its best.

LightDyNAmics ESR Elena Castellani (ESR9) has won the first prize for best presentation at the Royal Society of Chemistry’s RSC Spectroscopy & Dynamics Group Meeting 2020. Elena’s talk focused on a photoelectron spectroscopy study showing the viability of dipole-bound state in the presence of a molecular fragment. Many congratulations to her!

Steadliy the ESR's are participating in workshops and conferences, contributing with poster and oral presentations to the following events:
17th International Conference on Chiroptical Spectroscopy
CFF 2019 - Chemistry for the Future International Conference
9th edition of the JED PhD Students day in Toulouse
La fédération de Chimie-Physique de Paris Saclay CPPS

The first annual LightDyNAmics week has been a great success and was enjoyed by ESRs and PIs alike. The week was kicked-off by the Wider Horizon Day lead by our Scientific Advisory Board member Prof. Johannes Gierschner of IMDEA. The scientific skills of the ESRs were further trained through lectures on methodological and technical skills such as "Excited state dynamics simulations using SHARC" or "Ultrafast Optical Spectroscopy". Following our training  concept, the 1st LightDyNAmics week also included trainings on transferable and business skills with lectures on science communication and entrepreneurship. Next to the training activities, the ESRs also got to meet with the REA Project Officer as part of the successful mid-term check meeting - a new format introduced by the EC. An exciting and formative city tour and mountains of the very best Italian food rounded off the event.

In a month from now, the first LightDyNAmics week will be held from the 17-21 June at the Department of Industrial Chemistry "Toso Montanari" in Bologna, Italy.  The programme includes the Wider Horizon Day: "Future Lighting: Changes an Challenges of OLEDs" and lectures to improve Methodological & Technical skills as well as Transferable & Business skills. The last day of the meeting will be dedicated to the midterm check with the EC  project officer.

The LightDyNAmics consortium is happy to announce the first peer-reviewed publication by ESR Davide Avagliano (UNIVIE). The journal article titled "DNA-binding mechanism of spiropyran photoswitches: the role of electrostatics" was published in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics and is accessible through open access.

The LightDyNAmics has successfully been held from 21 - 25 January 2019 at the Institute for Biostructures and Bioimaging (CNR) in Naples, Italy. The ESRs got to meet each other for the first time and over five days they were introduced to the field of light/soft-matter interaction, basic principles of genetics, DNA and RNA structure through a mix of lectures and exercises. 
The ESRs themselves presented their research topic to the consortium. The programme was complemented with a guided tour through the historical centre of Naples.
The next chance to meet for the LightDyNamic networt will be the first LightDyNamic week in June 2019.

So far, nine of the total 15 LightDyNAmics ESRs have started their positions with the respective Beneficiaries. The ESRs will spend a total of three years on the project and will get trained in the area of light/soft-matter interaction. Apart from the training they receive through their local research projects, each ESR will also be enrolled in a PhD programme. Through the network-wide training events, the ESRs will receive multidisciplinary scientific training and acquire transferable and business skills. Read more about the training the LightDyNAmics ESRs will receive in the Training section.