Report on the first PPSG Early Stage Researcher Meeting
Friday 18th November 2010, RSC, Burlington House
The aim of the PPSG Early Stage Researcher Meeting was to hold a 1-day conference where PhD students and postdocs working in the area of peptide and protein chemistry (broadly defined!) could gain experience of presenting their work, discuss their projects, and be exposed to a broad range of peptide and protein chemistry from around the UK.
The meeting was informally advertised, with registration via the RSC’s online registration service, and 55 participants registered. There were eight oral presentations, seven of which were from PhD students, of 25 minutes each, with fourteen posters presented. At the end of the day a plenary lecture “Probing of the Interactions of the Neuropeptide Y Receptor System” was given by Professor Annette Beck-Sickinger (University of Leipzig).
The posters were judged by Peter Wright, Parvez Haris and Fabienne Burlina, and the oral presentations by Alethea Tabor, John Offer and Annette Beck-Sickinger. The prizes (£ 100 each) were awarded to:
Oral prize: Jemima Thomas (supervisor: Ed Tate, IC)
Poster prize: Megan Wright (supervisor: Ed Tate, IC)
Two travel bursaries were also awarded, one to Lynsey Aitken (Strathclyde) who presented a poster, and one to Emiliana De Santis (Medway School of Pharmacy) who gave an oral presentation.
Overall it was felt to be a very worthwhile and enjoyable meeting, with lots of positive feedback from the PhD students and postdocs who attended. The PPSG will definitely run another of these meetings in November 2011. We would like to thank the sponsors, Merck and Enzo Life Sciences, for their generous support of the poster and oral prizes (Merck) and the expenses for the visiting speaker (Enzo), and also to thank the RSC for their assistance with organising the meeting.
