Permanent position: Our ex-post-doctoral researcher Dr. Natalia Calvo has secured one of the very rare permanent positions as a CONICET Researcher in Argentina

Last year, Dr. Natalia Calvo visited us for a short post-doctoral research stay in our lab, to learn with Dr. Sruthi Sreekumar how to produce and characterise chitosan-coated nano-capsules for the delivery of hydrophobic antifungal azole drugs for the treatment of vaginal Candida infections. Their paper describing the successful achievement of this first step in an optimised candidiasis treatment has just been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. During our recent email exchange concerning this publication, we learned that this spring, Natalia has secured for herself one of the rare permanent Researcher positions at CONICET, the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research. Natalia told us: “In Argentina, you can do research with a position of Professor in a university or as a Researcher of CONICET, this last is a full-time researcher. CONICET gives scholarships for both Ph.D. (5 years) and post-doctoral training (2 or 3 years). Then if you want to continue in the system, you can apply for a position as a researcher of CONICET. The problem as always is that very few people can win access to this position. Only 15 people from all over Argentina entered the commission of chemical sciences in the convocation that I applied, which is less than one person per province. I applied for this job in 2018 and I received the acceptance this April. While I wait for the position to become effective, they have extended my postdoctoral fellowship.” That is excellent news indeed. Congratulations Natalia! This should allow us to continue our collaboration in future.