One of the great things about studying for a PhD is the opportunities it presents for meeting new people, being exposed to new ideas and learning new things. Sometimes this arises in a more formal setting such as during seminar, conference presentation or training workshop but equally as often it occurs by chance meetings or discussions over coffee. It’s often said that most real science is conducted in the pub!
Over the past few weeks I have had many of these opportunities. On the 15th of March, I and a few of my lab colleagues travelled to Cambridge University for the Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics Symposium (EGGS). This symposium was sponsored by the Genetics Society and provides an opportunity for researchers to share ideas and present their work. As a group we had decided that we would travel to the symposium and back in a single day – which made for a very early start and a late finish!
The symposium program had 15 talks scheduled through the day. The talks covered a range of topics from the evolution of viral resistance in rabbits (‘The rabbit strikes back: myxomatosis and the evolution of viral resistance’ – Joel Alves, University of Cambridge) to understanding the development of genitalia in Drosophila (‘Genetic and developmental basis of male genitalia evolution in Drosophila’ – Maria Daniela Santos Nunes, Oxford Brookes University). Sometimes it is easy to look at a conference/symposium program and all too readily dismiss talks as ‘not relevant’ or ‘unrelated’ to your own research. Sometimes this is indeed the case, but no matter what the topic of the talk there is something you can learn – from presentation skills, slide composition to even how not to do something!
Overall the day was a success, we heard some great talks, had chance to see some of the beautiful college buildings of Cambridge University and met some lovely people. We also looked around the fascinating collections of the Sedgewick Museum of Earth Sciences, a truly great institution – if you get a chance to go then really do! Thanks to the Genetics Society for sponsoring the symposium.
On the 21st of March I attended a three day Population Genomics workshop at Sheffield University. The workshop was funded by NERC and run by staff of the NERC Biomolecular Analysis Facility (NBAF) at Sheffield. Focusing on a variety of programs, the series of online tutorials and lectures during the workshop took us through a pipeline of bioinformatic data analysis. We could easily have spent weeks working through the problems provided but crucially the workshop provided an overview or taster of different methods and analyses. The knowledge and expertise of the workshop staff were incredible and I would recommend anybody with an interest to check out the services/opportunities provided at NBAF – http://nbaf.nerc.ac.uk/
In addition to these events I have also attended guest lectures both in my department and in my college at Durham. These can be especially varied. Early last month I attended two extremely dichotomous lectures on the same day, one on the effects of light pollution on wildlife and one on making medieval nautical charts! I love these opportunities for learning and it is one of my favourite aspects of my PhD so far. However, we mustn’t forget just how much I have learned from my colleagues. From lunch time chats to laboratory meetings I have probably learnt most from them, to the point I would say I couldn’t do my PhD without the support and knowledge of all the people around me on a day to day basis. A strong research group/team is invaluable and that is a lesson that I will remember forever.
Dr. Daniel M Moore 