Guest article Alexa Dani Looking back on INASCON 2023 A “journey” organized by students The journey of the International Nanoscience Student Conference (INASCON) began in Silkeborg, Denmark, in 2007 with a visionary idea: a conference organized by students for students. Since then, the meeting has traversed eight countries and attracted bachelor’s, master’s and PhD students from across Europe and beyond. This year, Basel hosted the conference for the third time from 22 to 25 August. Global collaboration Putting the “international” in INASCON, the event in Ba- sel in August 2023 brought together over 60 participants from 26 universities in 15 countries. Thanks to generous support from our sponsors, INASCON was able to wel- come not only doctoral candidates but also students, as well as numerous guests. It was very important to us that, thanks to 昀椀nancial support, all visitors were able to attend. Over three quarters of participants stayed at Hotel Odelya and made contacts extending well beyond the conference program. Our program The diverse group of participants in INASCON 2023 thoroughly enjoyed their time in Basel. (Image: Peter Dani) Under the motto “Make Nano Visible,” this year’s pro- gram culminated with fascinating talks by well-known scientists: Anne Géraldine Guex, Sabina Caneva and Patrick Shahgaldian shared their specialist knowledge and highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary ap- proaches in the biosciences. James Wootton from IBM Research Europe – Zurich brought a spot of humor to the conference with his talk on quantum error correction. In another highlight of INASCON, Clarice Aiello gave a pub- lic talk on quantum biology, captivating over 170 science enthusiasts and triggering the longest Q&A session of the conference. We were also privileged to welcome two Nobel laureates among our guests: Kurt Wüthrich, who Professor Morten Meldal at his Professor Clarice Aiello at her provided some insights into 60 years of research in the talk “Molecular Click Adventures public talk on the subject of quan- 昀椀eld of protein NMR, and Morten Meldal, who explained — A Leap from the Shoulders of tum biology. She explained how his groundbreaking work in the area of click chemistry Giants.” (Image: Tania Beringer) nature uses quantum processes and o昀昀ered us an insight into the Nobel Prize award cer- to achieve optimum operation emony. and how we can control these processes for therapeutic bene昀椀t. (Image: Tania Beringer) “Last week, I had the great pleasure of speaking before brilliant young minds at INASCON in Basel.” Professor Morten Meldal SNI INSight December 2023 20