Recently the Isolated Biomolecules and Biomolecular Interactions (IBBI) conference was hosted in Inverness by Sally Shirran and Rebecca Beveridge! A lot of work and effort was put into this amazing conference, which is why it was a delight for the whole group to have attended! Additionally, each member of the group was able to present a poster at the conference, highlighting the important work we do in the group. Christina’s poster was so well loved that she won the award for best postdoctoral poster! Cara along with May Constabel from the Bush Lab hosted a career’s panel that was a fan favorite of many!
The week-long conference saw some exciting talks and posters about what people across the field were working on. Each of us had a personal favorite talk/poster.
- Cindy’s personal favorites:
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- “My favorite talk was Vicki Wysocki’s, not only because she was a great presenter, but also because her topic was very interesting. I also really liked Thomas Hugart’s poster because it was all about bringing biomolecules into the gas phase by vibrating the emitters (he also had a video to accompany the poster!).”
- Nicole’s personal favorites:
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- “Among the many insightful and engaging talks, my personal favourite was by Iuliia Stroganova as I was keen to learn about new advancements in electron-based fragmentation techniques for fragmentation. My favourite poster was Assel Berikkara’s, I found her poster to be quite insightful and a detailed look at the power of top-down fragmentation.”
- Cara’s favorites:
- “My two favourite talks were by Evan Perez and Vicki Wysocki. Evan set the scene perfectly, providing detailed background information that made the work highly accessible despite it being outside my immediate research area, while Vicki’s talk most closely aligned with my own work, allowing me to take away loads of valuable insights relevant to my research. My favourite poster was by Hannah Chesher, as her presentation was super clear and engaging, and I particularly liked how well she explained the future direction her work.“
- Christina’s personal favorites:
- “I really enjoyed Isabelle Compagnon’s talk as it contained both fantastic research and also some great life lessons. My favourite poster was probably Cara’s, as she chose to be bold with her graphic design whilst maintaining effective communication of her research“
- Imma’s personal favorites:
- “I really enjoyed Sophie Harvey and Elyssa Gallagher’s talks for their clarity and interesting insights that I took from their presentations. I also won’t forget Erin Baker’s talk, especially because of the methods used to collect the samples! “
- Man Sing’s personal favorites:
- “I liked the talk by Kelvin Anggara, as it demonstrated how glycan bonds in glycan-decorated biomolecules can be directly observed using STM imaging. Regarding the posters, I particularly liked the one by Kim Greis (ETH Zurich), which focuses on investigating the fluorescence lifetimes of glycopeptides using a combination of ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IMMS) and gas-phase Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET).“
Not only did the conference promote the sharing of ideas and conversation with talks of science happening all around us, but it also provided so much opportunity to explore the city of Inverness!
The first day of the conference went by smoothly with everyone arriving in one piece, albeit somewhat soaked from the typical Scottish weather. After everyone’s arrival, there was a session of talks and a lovely dinner after where we realized how well fed we were going to be for the week at the hotel.
The second day of the conference comprised of many more talks and a long break in the day where the group went to Scotland’s second largest second-hand bookshop – Leakey’s! Here we had quite the photoshoot amongst some old books and a walk along the river Ness.
As nice as the second day was, the third day proved even better with the big excursion to Loch Ness and the Uile-bheist Distillery. Unfortunately we did not see Nessie, but the blast of vitamin D and pollen from blooming flowers on the loch and whisky tasting at the distillery truly made this day the best.
On the fourth day some of us ventured off to see the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery where we completed a quiz for stickers and played a traditional Scottish game similar to chess. Some of us also went on an expedition to actually find Nessie amongst the Ness Islands in the middle of the river. It was here that Mxolisi managed to spot the closest thing to Nessie – a fallen tree!
The final day hosted the final talks, which were nothing but splendid and the awards ceremony, which was even more brilliant. The closing remarks marked a bitter sweet moment where the conference had come to an end. We said our final goodbyes to the lovely new and old connections we had just spent an entire week with and hopped on our train/van back to Glasgow!
For some of us this was our first conference and for some of us it was our last. In either case, it was truly a conference to remember. Big thank you to Rebecca and Sally for organizing such a great conference!
