SEB Bulletin March 2008
Travel Grant Winners
Interested in applying for a travel grant? Visit www.sebiology.org. Deadlines for applications for the next two rounds are: 30th June 2008 and 30th September 2008.
- Keith Macaulay Cambridge University Keystone Symposia on Plant Innate Immunity, Colorado
- Sarah Tarr Cambridge University Molecular Approaches to Malaria Conference, Melbourne
- Jennifer Bromley University of Cambridge Keystone Symposia, Colorado
- Jack Westwood University of Cambridge Keystone Symposia, Colorado
- Jodie Rummer University of British Columbia Visit to Michael Berenbrink's lab, University of Liverpool; SEB Meeting, Marseille
- Katarzyna Goljanek University of East Anglia Keystone Symposia, British Columbia, Canada
- Niall Macquaide University of Glasgow Biophysical Society meeting, Long Beach, California
- James Pickering University of Leeds Biophysical Society meeting, Long Beach, California
- Lukasz Kozera University of Leeds Biophysical Society meeting, Long Beach, California
- Frederico Fermenti University of Oxford SEB Meeting, Marseille
- Rachel Nimmo University of Oxford Keystone Symposia, British Columbia, Canada
- Matthew Davey University of Sheffield Metabolic Profiling Forum, Lyon, France
- Olena Riabinina University of Sussex ASSAB Annual Conference, Australia
Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals
Receiving a Company of Biologists travel grant from the SEB gave me the unique opportunity to attend the “Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals” in Cape Town, South Africa. This conference unites researchers from all around the world, who work on every aspect of marine mammal biology, from conservation and abundance estimates to anatomy and physiology. During 5 days, talks were taking place in three simultaneous sessions, as well as plenary sessions, poster sessions, video presentations and other events. This gave everyone the chance to catch up on current research carried out all around the world as well as to connect with people working in the same field.
On the second last day of the conference I gave a talk about the project of my Masters of Research in “Environmental Biology”. This project was supported and supervised by Carol Sparling and Dave Thompson at the Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. During 3 months I had analysed the respiratory patterns of grey seals in captivity. The animals were allowed to dive freely while being restricted to breathing in a single breathing chamber. At the chamber, oxygen and carbon dioxide concentration of the air were continuously sampled. Simultaneously, the breathing was recorded acoustically using hydrophones. For my analysis, I used data on respiration and other physiological variables to develop models for the prediction of oxygen uptake of the seals during the surface interval. From this, important information on metabolic rate can be inferred, a crucial aspect of marine mammal biology.
Presenting my results at the conference provided me with the opportunity to speak to a great number of experts in the field of marine mammal physiology. My talk was received well and my effort was rewarded with the award of “Best spoken presentation of a pre-doctoral student”. Additionally, several researchers came up to me to talk about my findings and how these could be further developed.
I am very grateful for everyone that contributed to my attendance at this conference, especially the SEB's and the Company of Biologist's travel grant. My presentation at the conference provided me with the opportunity to demonstrate my knowledge and potential. It also enabled me to network with renowned experts in the field in this early stage of my career. It was therefore an important mile stone for my future working life in research.
Annina Zollinger
University of St. Andrews
Plant & Animal Genome XVI, San Diego, CA, USA, 2008
The 2008 International conference on the status of plant and animal genome research, also known as PAG-XVI, was held from 12th to 16th January in the Town & Country Hotel in San Diego, California. There were 80 PAG-XVI workshops, 22 industry workshops, eight computer demons/training sessions and four plenary lecture sessions. As PAG is an annual meeting, this year several new workshops for PAG-XVI were included. They are Transposable Elements, Bud Dormancy, Coffee Genome, Plant Metabolic Pathway Regulation & Drug Discovery, Comparative Genomics, and Oats, which makes PAG-XVI more comprehensive in genome research.
For a big event such as PAG-XVI, with more than 2,000 participants and about 1,000 posters, it was very important for us to decide which workshops and posters we were interested in. My background is plant genetics, therefore I attended mostly plant genome related workshops, including Forage & Turf Plants, International Lolium Genome Initiative, Use of Molecular Markers for Plant Breeders, QTL cloning, Comparative Genomics, Abiotic Stress, Plant Reproductive Genomics, Genomics of Plant Development& Signal Networks, Plant Feedstock Genomics for Bioenergy, Transposable elements and Plant Metabolic Pathway. These workshops gave me a very good opportunity to keep up to date with research and discoveries in the plant genetics area, especially in sequencing and marker developments. The company workshops made very worthwhile listening to learn the most advanced techniques. I attended the Affymetrix Workshop for Affymetrix MyGeneChip technique, Applied Biosystems Workshop for SOLiD technology, and Nimblegen Workshop for duplicated genomes analysis. All the companies had stands in the exhibition hall and the representatives of the companies were ready to answer inquires as well as introduce their products. It gave me a chance to know the business area of scientific research and I was very surprised at how fast all the companies developed and the wide variety of practicability. All kinds of research related products could be found there, such as PCR machines, agarose gels, DNA extraction kits, tube mixers, shakers, transform replicators, centrifuges, and as large as incubators.
There were eight Plenary Lectures altogether in the four sessions: (1) Genes and Greens: The Truth is not a Niche Market. (2) Small RNA Networks in Plants. (3) Advances in Proteomics: Technology Platforms, Databases, and Biomarker Discovery. (4) Back through the genetic bottleneck: Rice domestication and wild alleles for rice improvement. (5) Ontologies for Biologists - The Promise and Reality. (6) Energy Genomics. (7) Arabidopsis epigenomics. (8) Systems Genetic Approaches for Finding Complex Disease Genes in Mice and Men. All of them were clearly delivered with rather comprehensive information on the topic. I personally liked the Energy Genomics lecture the best. It is not a familiar area for me, therefore very interesting to learn how plants such as soybean, maize, switch grass, sorghum, cotton, cassava and branchypodium could be used for saving our energy. The lecture itself was very succinct, clear and well organized.
It was my first time to attend such dimension to an international conference and I very much appreciated to be an invited speaker at the International Lolium Genome Initiative workshop, organized by Reed Barker and Iain Donnison. My talk was about “Identification of differentially expressed genes during self-incompatibility (SI) response in Lolium perenne L.” I presented the results of my so far two years PhD study in SI libraries construction and genes expression analysis of SI candidates by real-time PCR. I got some good feedback for my talk, which is very encouraging and affirmative of my previous work.
Bicheng Yang
Teagasc, Ireland
37th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience 2007
Around 31,000 scientists from all over the world attended the annual SFN meeting held in November this year in San Diego, USA. More than 15,000 posters were presented in nine poster sessions spread over 5 days from 3rd Nov. to 7th Nov., 2007. Poster sessions provided a forum to get valuable input on my PhD work (“Lmo3 regulates specific aspects of layer identity in the developing cortex”) and also helped me to update myself with latest developments in the field of cerebral cortical development. It also provided an opportunity to make new friends, acquire useful reagents for my research and meet eminent scientists in person.
Featured Lectures on topics of general interest and theme based Special Lectures were useful in understanding the current state of research in neuroscience. Some of the notable ones were The Albert and Ellen Grass Lecture by Susan Lindquist (“Protein Folding and Misfolding in Neurobiology”), The History of Neuroscience Lecture by Michael Gazzaniga (“Dividing the Cerebral Networks: The split Brain”) and Techniques in Neuroscience Lecture by Mriganka Sur (“New Approaches for Revealing Cortical Function: Plasticity and Dynamics of Visual Cortex Networks”).
The topic based symposia provided an opportunity to get a comprehensive view of exciting new developments such as a “role for cell cycle molecules in post-mitotic neurons” and “cytoskeletal mechanisms of growth cone migration” to name just two. These were chaired by distinguished scientists in the field and speakers discussed their latest research findings. I am very grateful to the Company of Biologists and the Society for Experimental Biology for awarding a travel grant enabling me to attend this meeting.
P. Hari Kumar
Colaba, Mumbai
