Training Courses
Training Courses
CENTURI provides training courses to PhD students and postdoctoral fellows. Each training is designed to help students acquire new skills.
Through CENTURI training courses, PhD students & postdoctoral fellows learn useful knowledge in various topics such as imaging and optics, paper writing or statistics.
Courses and workshops are animated by experts. The training courses are specially designed to suit the needs of students and give them tools for their career.
Training courses
Finding a job outside of Academia 2025
Dates: 25 & 26 september
General objective: identify your key transferable skills and transform them into an offer of services that will make you stand out from other job candidates.
Indeed, researchers have numerous technical skills, but also other “transferable” skills of they are probably not aware. Such skills may include working in a multicultural environment, dealing with failure, communicating efficiently, etc. Presenting these skills as an offer of services will considerably improve your job search prospects. You'll also learn how to contact peers working in your chosen fields for "informational interviews" in which you gather key information. This method is, on average, 16 times more efficient than replying to job ads.
Limited to 8 participants.
Registration opening soon.

Learn to have a Grant 2025
Dates: June 5 & 6

General objective: Learn the keys to giving evaluators all the information they need to decide whether to fund you. These keys are applicable to all disciplines and all types of financing.
You'll learn the 3 keys to getting your application funded. These keys reflect the workings of funding panels, which 1) review many high-quality applications; 2) are made up of non-experts, and 3) read your application in just 20 minutes. Limited to 8 participants.
Registration opening soon.
Oral Communication 2025
Dates: May 12 and May 26
This 2-day training course teaches you how to create fascinating oral presentations, customized for your audience.
Students will first review the basis of oral presentation and learn methodologies to design clear talks and use them to improve their talk. On the second day, students will each apply what they have been taught on the first day by presenting their talk in ordder to benefit from individual feedback from the trainer and other trainees.
The course is dedicated in priority to PhD students (1st and 2nd year) and is limited to 8 students.
Registration opening soon.

Paper Writing 2025
Dates: March 26 to 28

This training course is designed to teach PhD students and Postdoctoral fellows how to write a scientific paper and get it published.
During this training, students learn how to plan and outline their article and how to be clear and concise. They also learn useful strategies that can be used to facilitate the publication of their article.
The course is open to PhD students (2nd & 3rd year) and Postdocs and is limited to 12 participants.
Registration opening soon.
CENTURI Data Weeks
Part 1 - Statistics for Biology 2025
Dates: February 24 to 28
Taught by Pierre Mangeol
This course is the first part of the Data Weeks course.
The course introduces or refreshes doctoral students who want to use the tools of Statistics. It will cover the most usual situations encountered when analyzing biological data with the goal for participants to be able to analyze their data autonomously after completing the course.
The course will be divided into lectures and practicals that will take place over 4 days in February 2025 in Luminy.
Practical courses are only available on registration (now for the waiting list).
Depending on the group you are affiliated to, your practical courses are scheduled in the afternoons after the lectures sessions on Feb, or on March 3 & 4 (full days).
Part 2 - Intro to Biological Data 2025
Dates: March 3 to 7
Taught by Léo Guignard, Martin Lardy, Marc-Eric Perrin, Matthieu Gilson & Paul Villoutreix
This course is the second part of the Data Weeks course.
It will include four different courses, extended over a week:
1. The Python course, taught by Léo Guignard ; Beginner Level on March 3 ; Advanced on March 4
2. The Machine Learning & Deep Learning Basis course, taught by Martin Lardy & Marc-Erin Perrin ; on March 5
3. The Deep Learning Advanced course, taught by Matthieu Gilson from INT ; on March 6 and March 7 morning
4. The Data Analysis course, taught by Paul Villoutreix ; on March 7 afternoon
A Focus on Imaging 2025
Dates: January 20 to 24

The "A focus on imaging" training course is an introductory course to different microscopy techniques, image analysis and programming. The course is dedicated to PhD students (1st and 2nd year) willing to explore the most advanced and popular techniques used for biological applications.
By the end of the training the students should have a good understanding of basic optics and imaging techniques as well as image analysis and programming.
The course is open to PhD students (1st & 2nd year) and is limited to 18 participants.
Cell biology by the numbers 2024
Dates: October 14 to 18
We are pleased to announce that the next edition of Physical Biology of the Cell, an intensive week long course taught by Rob Phillips from Caltech, will be organised in mid-October 2024.
The goal of this course is to take a broad and quantitative view of modern biology with topics including the active matter herding of animals, the control of cellular organelle size, and the consumption of free energy to fuel processes like high fidelity polymerization in DNA replication and sugar transport up a concentration gradient.
You can find more details and the course Syllabus here.
This intensive course is open to Master 2, PhD students and post-doctoral fellows who have not yet received a training from Rob Phillips previously.
Limited to 30 participants.
Registration requests must be sent to Mélina De Oliveira (melina.de-oliveira@univ-amu.fr).

Finding a job outside academia
Dates: April 8 and 9

The registrations for the course "Finding a job outside academia" will be opened at a later date.
Introduction to Biological Data 2024
Dates: February 21 to 23
The training sessions in "Introduction to Biological Data" aim to study image analysis related problems following the FAIR data principle (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) while providing the opportunity to introduce to newcomers the basics of coding and machine learning. The training courses are the following:
- Introduction to Python
- Machine Learning
- Data analysis
This course is limited to 20 students.

A Focus on Imaging 2024
Dates: January 22 to 26

The "A focus on imaging" training course is an introductory course to different microscopy techniques, image analysis and programming. The course is dedicated to PhD students (1st and 2nd year) willing to explore the most advanced and popular techniques used for biological applications.
By the end of the training the students should have a good understanding of basic optics and imaging techniques as well as image analysis and programming.
The course is open to PhD students (1st & 2nd year) an is limited to 18 participants.
Paper writing 2024
Dates: January 8 to 10
This training course is designed to teach PhD students and Postdoctoral fellows how to write a scientific paper and get it published.
During this training, students learn how to plan and outline their article and how to be clear and concise. They also learn useful strategies that can be used to facilitate the publication of their article.
The course is open to PhD students (2nd & 3rd year) and Postdocs and is limited to 12 participants.

Cell biology by the numbers 2023
Dates: September 25 to 29

We are pleased to announce that Physical Biology of the Cell, an intensive week long course taught by Rob Phillips from Caltech and Ana Duarte (graduate student in the Rob Phillips Lab) will soon be open for registration.
The goal of this course is to take a broad and quantitative view of modern biology with topics including the active matter herding of animals, the control of cellular organelle size, and the consumption of free energy to fuel processes like high fidelity polymerization in DNA replication and sugar transport up a concentration gradient.
Introduction to Biological Data 2023
Dates: March 27 to 29
The training sessions in "Introduction to Biological Data" aim to study image analysis related problems following the FAIR data principle (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) while providing the opportunity to introduce to newcomers the basics of coding and machine learning. The training courses are the following:
- Introduction to Python
- Machine Learning
- Data analysis
This course is limited to 20 students.

Oral Communication 2023
First session: March 17
Second session : March 31

This 2-day training course teaches you how to create fascinating oral presentations, customized for your audience.
Students will first review the basis of oral presentation and learn methodologies to design clear talks and use them to improve their talk. On the second day, students will each apply what they have been taught on the first day by presenting their talk in ordder to benefit from individual feedback from the trainer and other trainees.
The course is dedicated in priority to PhD students (1st and 2nd year) and is limited to 8 students.
A Focus on Imaging 2023
Dates: February 6 to 10
The "A focus on imaging" training course is an introductory course to different microscopy techniques, image analysis and programming. The course is dedicated to PhD students (1st and 2nd year) willing to explore the most advanced and popular techniques used for biological applications.
By the end of the training the students should have a good understanding of basic optics and imaging techniques as well as image analysis and programming.
The course is open to PhD students (1st & 2nd year) an is limited to 18 participants.

Cell biology by the Numbers 2022
Dates: May 2 to 6

The training session "Physical biology of the cell", which will take place from May 2 to 6, 2022 is now open for registration. The course is taught by Rob Phillips, Professor at Caltech, and Soichi Hirokawa (graduate students in Rob Phillips' lab).
The course aims to study the cell and its components using a wide variety of tools in order to make quantitative and predictive statements about cellular life.
A Focus on Imaging 2022
Dates: March 7 to 11
The "A focus on imaging" training course is an introductory course to different microscopy techniques, image analysis and programming. The course is dedicated to PhD students (1st and 2nd year) willing to explore the most advanced and popular techniques used for biological applications.
By the end of the training the students should have a good understanding of basic optics and imaging techniques as well as image analysis and programming.
The course is open to PhD students (1st & 2nd year) an is limited to 18 participants.

Oral Communication 2021
First session: December, 6 and 13, 2021

This 2-day training course teaches you how to create fascinating oral presentations, customized for your audience.
Students will first review the basis of oral presentation and learn methodologies to design clear talks and use them to improve their talk. On the second day, students will each apply what they have been taught on the first day by presenting their talk in ordder to benefit from individual feedback from the trainer and other trainees.
The course is dedicated in priority to PhD students (1st and 2nd year) and is limited to 8 students.