Two WUSTL graduate students traveled to Lake Constance in Germany this summer to meet with Nobel laureates.

Lindau Harbor, photographed by Chris Evans, a previous student attendee of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.

As scientific conferences go, the Lindau Meeting isn’t bad. The participants travel to Germany’s Lindau Island in Lake Constance at the foot of the Alps, where Nobel laureates have convened to inspire and enlighten them.



This summer, two Washington University students, Claire Cobley and Eric Feczko, were among the 75 American students selected by nationwide competition to attend the laureate’s gathering.


Cobley, a graduate student in the lab of Younan Xia, PhD, the James M. McKelvey Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, is working on the development of nanoscale materials with medical applications.


Feczko, a graduate student in the neurosciences program, works with John Pruett, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry in the School of Medicine, on autism and face recognition.


The Lindau meeting dates from 1951, when two physicians convinced Count Lennart Bernadotte of Wisborg to support a meeting of Nobel laureates in the field of medicine.


This year, the 60th Lindau meeting, held June 27-July 2, was opened in the Inselhalle on Lindau Island by Countess Bettina Bernadotte, the count’s daughter. Fifty-nine Nobel laureates and 650 young scientists were in attendance.


During the meeting, the laureates lecture on topics of their choice in the mornings and participate in small-group discussions with the students in the afternoon. The evenings are devoted to dining and music.


Cobley says laureate Oliver Smithies, DPhilco-winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, made a particular impression on her.


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