An inter-departmental conference for PhD students took place at UFT on 13th October 2015.

The DocDay, an interdisciplinary conference with more than 60 participants from BOKU and AIT, took place for the third time in Tulln on 13th October 2015. This year's event was organised by the research group VIRIS – Analytical Ecogeochemistry from the Department of Chemistry (BOKU) at the UFT. Prof. Erika Staudacher, Head of the Department of Chemistry, opened the DocDay, and Prof. Manfred Grasserbauer (Vienna University of Technology) presented the keynote lecture entitled "Global Sustainable Development: Challenges for Science and Technology".

Subsequently, PhD students presented their research in seventeen talks and twenty-eight posters. A scientific committee, consisting of Prof. Astrid Forneck (BOKU-UFT), Dr. Elisavet Kunz-Vekiru (BOKU-IFA) and Dr. Markus Gorfer (AIT) identified the best oral presentation. Gregor Tegl (Institute for Environmental Biotechnology, BOKU-IFA) won the award with his talk entitled "Formulations of chitosan incorporating Cellobiose Dehydrogenase: antimicrobial systems for the treatment of wound infection". The winner of the best poster award was Adnan Akhter (Division of Plant Protection, BOKU-UFT) for his contribution entitled "Biochar and compost: soil amendments altering root exudation and tomato-soil fungus interactions". In addition an award was granted for the best contribution to the scientific discussion, which went to Nora Odabas (Division of Chemistry of Renewable Resources, BOKU-UFT). The conference ended with the traditional DocDay Oktoberfest with wheat beer, veal sausages and pretzels. The DocDay was made possible by financial support by the BiRT initiative (Bio-Resources & Technologies Tulln), which the organizers gratefully acknowledge. Links:
DocDay 2015
VIRIS Laboratory of Analytical Ecogeochemistry
BiRT

30.10.2015