Category Archives: Meetings

Medal & Award winners at the 2017 Spring Meeting

April 11, 2017 comms Leave a comment

As every year, the Spring meeting was the time of awards and medals! This year, we had awardees of three societies who are listed below. For those wanting to have a look at the topics of talks and posters presented at the meeting, please download the abstract book here.

► Medal Awards

BSDB Waddington Award: Bill Harris – Univ. Cambridge
The Genetics Society Medal: Marisa Bartolomei – Univ. Pennsylvania
BSCB Hooke Award: Ewa Paluch – UCL, London
BSCB WICB Award: Victoria Sanz Moreno – King’s College London, London
The Mendel Medal Lecture: David Baulcombe – Univ. Cambridge
The BSDB Cheryll Tickle Medal: Jenny Nichols – Univ. Cambridge
BSDB Beddington Award: Erik Clark – Univ. Cambridge

► PhD Poster Prizes (are prizes still the same?)

1^stBSDB PhD Poster Prize winner (Attendance at SDB 76^th Annual Meeting, Minneapolis): Claire Bromley (Kings College London) – Poster 25 “Investigating biomechanical forces in zebrafish brain morphogenesis“
1^st BSCB PhD Poster Prize winner (visit to 2017 ASCB/EMBO meeting, Philadelphia): Christina Dix (University College London) – poster 5 “Adhesion, not cortical tension, is vital for successful cytokinesis in RPE-1 cells“
1^st Genetics Society (£100 cash prize sponsored by BioMed Central): Alexandra Buffry (Oxford Brookes University) – Poster 182 “Investigating gene regulatory network architecture and evolution in different developmental contexts“
2^nd BSDB PhD Poster Prize (£100 cash prize sponsored by BioMed Central): Ariadna Gador Navarro-Aragall (UCL Institute of Ophthalmology) – Poster 86 “SEMA3E and SEMA3C Cooperate to establish vascular boundaries“
2^nd BSCB PhD Poster Prize (£100 cash prize sponsored by BioMed Central): Sophie Adams (Barts Cancer Institute) – Poster 32 “‘Exosome signatures’ as biomarkers for centrosome-targeted therapy in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC)“

► Postdoc Poster Prizes

1^st BSDB Prize (£200 cash prize sponsored by BioMed Central): Carla Mulas (University of Cambridge) – Poster 129 “Functional characterisation of metachronous cell state transitions“
1^st BSCB Prize (£100 Cash prize sponsored by BioMed Central): Girish Mali (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) – Poster 47 “Assembly Mechanisms of Dynein Motors“
1^st Genetics Society (£100 bank transfer sponsored by BioMed Central): Laura Molina-Garicia (University College London) – Poster 122 “Sexy learning in C. elegans”
2^nd BSDB Prize (£100 cash prize sponsored by BioMed Central): Hadi Boukhatmi (University of Cambridge) – Poster 92 “Molecular logic behind Satellite cells specification in Drosophila”

► Others

Genetics Society Overall Poster Prize (Junior Scientist Conference Grant, Scheme A): Alewo Idoko-Akoh (The Roslin Institute) – Poster 185 “CXCR4 and c-Kit signalling are required for directed migration of chicken primordial germ cells through the chick embryonic vascular system“
BSDB Honorary Mention (Certificate): Eva Higginbotham (University of Cambridge) -Poster 114 “Neurotransmitter specification in the ventral nerve cord of Drosophila melanogaster”
The BSCB Science writing Prize: Marcia Kishida (University of Cambridge)
The BSCB Image Award:
- 1^st: Cristiano Lucci, School of Life Sciences, University of Nottingham
- 2^nd: Anneliese Norris, School of Biology (University of St Andrews)
- 3^rd: Mohammad Mofatteh (MRC LMB, Cambridge), Alan Prescott, College of life Sciences, University of Dundee

Movies of medal lectures

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv4qZttn9is; w=520; h=405

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv9ndsOuRCE; w=520; h=405

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3zMt6uYpY; w=520; h=405

Hooke Medal Lecture: Ewa Paluch

Women in Cell Biology Lecture: Victoria Sanz Moreno

Events, Meetings

Meeting Report: BSDB Autumn Meeting 2016

February 10, 2017 comms Leave a comment

Under the sponsorship of the Anne McLaren Memorial Trust Fund and The Company of Biologists, the BSDB Autumn meeting organised by Jenny Nichols and Tristan Rodriguez took place in the Pollock Halls at the University of Edinburgh. The topic this year was: ‘Chimaeras and their use in studying developmental processes and disease models’. Chimaeras are made of cells from two or more different organisms of the same or different species. Since their first conception, chimaeras have been an essential tool to dissect cellular potential and are used to address a large number of questions in developmental biology using a variety of different model organisms, from plants to vertebrates. Read the full meeting report.

Awards, Events, Meetings

Looking back at the 2016 BSDB Autumn Meeting

October 17, 2016 comms Leave a comment

The 2016 BSDB Autumn meeting, organised by Jenny Nichols and Tristan Rodriguez under the topic of ‘chimaeras and their use in studying developmental processes and disease models’, took place on 28-30 August in The Pollock Halls at the University of Edinburgh. It was sponsored by the Anne McLaren Memorial Trust Fund and The Company of Biologists.

The five sessions on (1) Lineage tracing and Potency, (2) Signalling Mechanisms, (3) Regenerative Medicine and (4) Human Development, (5) Disease Models and Gene Function, saw a wide range of applications of chimaeras discussed in various model systems, presented as a mixture of traditional uses of chimaeras, recent innovations within this historical context and a broad range of other ideas and approaches – incorporating both the weird and the wonderful! A detailed meeting report will follow, and the speaker list can be viewed here.

Chimaeras are made of cells from two or more different organisms of the same or different species. Since their first conception, chimaeras have been an essential tool to dissect cellular potential and are used to address a large number of questions in developmental biology using a variety of different model organisms, from plants to vertebrates. But they have also always been an inspiration for story tellers and other artists. It was therefore delightful to see artists exhibit on this topic on the conference. These artists were Mia Buehr, who showed computer-generated embroidery with developmental biology themes, such as chick embryos, early mouse embryos and chimaeras (LINK1, LINK2), and the jeweller Aurora Lombardo (LINK).

iwokucinski Finally, the Autum Meeting hosted the inaugural Dennis Summerbell Lecture which was given by Iwo Kucinski who carried out his work in Eugenia Piddin’s laboratory at the Gurdon Institute. Iwo’s lecture was entitled “The molecular signature of the loser cell status reveals key pathways regulating cell competition” (for more detail see here).

Overall, the meeting was a great success, paving the way towards the big BSCB/BSDB/Genetics Society Joint Spring Meeting (2-5 April 2017), for which registration is now open (LINK).

Events, Meetings, Opportunities, Reports

Reflecting on the student & postdoc events at the BSCB/BSDB Spring Meeting

May 17, 2016 comms Leave a comment

Firstly, thank-you so much to everyone that participated in the student and postdoc events. It was lovely to meet many of you and we hope you had a great time.

Career workshop

From the BSDB student/postdoc survey results last year, it was evident that most people wanted to find out more about ‘alternative’ careers other than those on the traditional route of academia. With more PhDs being awarded and few top level jobs there is a need to provide more information as to what else can you do with your PhD. For this reason, we chose to focus this year’s careers session on alternative careers to academia. The highly attended session took the format of roundtable discussions and covered a plethora of topics including but not limited to, consulting, publishing, academic fellowships and engaging with the media. We would like to thank all the table leaders who provided stimulating discussions. This event wouldn’t have been possible without you!

Obtaining a lectureship/fellowship

Claudia Barros (Peninsula School of Medicine, Plymouth University)
Paul Conduit (Henry Dale Fellow, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge)
James Wakefield (University of Exeter)

Careers outside of academia

Katherine Brown (Editor, Development)
Anne Wiblin (Research Collaborations Manager, Abcam)
Caroline Grant (Senior Manager, Accenture)
Valentina Sasselli (Associate Publisher, Cell Biology)

Science Communication

Andreas Prokop (University of Manchester)
Cat Vicente (Community Manager, The Node)

From the feedback, we realise how valuable it is for young scientists to talk to other scientists who have trained as cell or developmental biologists and go on to have successful ‘alternative’ careers. For future workshops, we intend to build on this theme and invite an even more diverse selection of speakers.

Some selected comments from the participants:

‘Open and honest speakers, Enough time to discuss and explore career prerequisites, responsibilities and prospects’
‘Great organisation and table choices, Thank you! I feel quite optimistic now!’
‘Table leaders were friendly, easy to talk to and answered all questions’
‘Learning about career paths, Variety of careers amongst speakers’

Click here for a more in depth summary of the workshop.

student-postdocs-1

Science Breakfasts

This was the first year that we ran science breakfasts, whose goal was to facilitate informal discussions between junior researchers and scientists at the top of their field. A small number of students and postdocs got to participate in this event, discussing everything from research, careers and life in general with Abigail Tucker, Ottoline Leyser, Jordan Raff, Lidia Vasilieva and Thomas Surrey – who we are really grateful for giving up their time.

Student social

student-postdocs-2 This year the reps decided it would be fun to do something more interactive for the student/postdoc social. We randomly attached a name to the back of every guest, where each name was one-half of a famous pair, such as Romeo and Juliet. Each guest could not see their own name but could see the names of other guests. Using yes-no questions, each guest had to work out who they were and then find the other half of their pair. Each pair were given the task to build the tallest possible tower using marshmallows and spaghetti. The pairs were then grouped into teams of ten which competed against each other in a round of science pictionary.

Thank-you to all the sponsors who donated gifts. For the pair that found their pair first won a bound notebook each from Horizon and sweets. Class Learning provided a voucher for two books up to £100, which was awarded to the winners of spaghetti towers (Erik Clark, Gautham Dey and their winning tower pictured here).

Chocolates and sweets from the BSDB committee were awarded to the winning teams after the Pictionary round. Molecular biology of the Cell (Garland Science) was given to the winner of the best image (Rachna Narayanan with a drawing of WALL-E).

Student Symposium

This year the graduate student symposium was moved to the middle of the meeting, resulting in excellent attendance. This was a truly excellent event – the speakers covered a diverse range of topics in an engaging manner. Some talks even got mentioned in the twitterverse!

The format was also altered so that there were six fifteen minute presentations and six five minute presentations. All the speakers did an excellent job – particular mention must be made for everyone who managed to describe their complex research in just five minutes!

We hope to see many of you next year. If you have any comments or ideas please get in touch with Alex (students@bsdb.org) or Michelle (postdocs@bsdb.org); especially if you have ideas for games to play in the student social, know someone who would be a great table leader for the careers workshop or if there is someone with whom you would really like to have breakfast.

Meetings, News