BSCB Newsletter, Summer 2002

The ASCB in downtown DC

Bound for Washington DC, I was very excited about the prospect of what lay ahead.  I had been fortunate to win the 'Young Cell Biologist of the Year Award at last year's Spring Meeting of the BSCB, with a trip to the 41st American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting, from 8-12 December 2001.

The Brighton conference had been my first and the American one was on quite a different scale.  Some fellow PhD students from my lab, Ida Lister, Rhys Roberts and Neil Cook, were also at the conference and it was very enjoyable to share the experience with them. The meeting was held in the Washington Convention Centre which, despite being an enormous concrete monstrosity, was very suitable to accommodate the few thousansd conference delegates.  A short colourful walk from our hotel through Chinatown each morning took us to the Centre.

The Keynote Symposium looked to the future and the speakers, including Craig Venter, academics from Princeton and Stanford, and a politician, discussed genomics, stem cells and functional approaches to cell biology in the new century.

Each day there were talks at 8am.  Coffee breaks are well remembered for the mountains of cookies.  These morning talks covered a wide range of topics from genotype/phenotype plasticity in cancer to membrane trafficking and the cell biology of sensation.  Each afternoon there were eight parallel minisymposia; we had to be very selective, and choose the one which most appealed.  I enjoyed hearing about research in my field in the talks on cell motility, cytoskeleton and cell junctions, and endocytosis.  Throughout the meeting there were also several other sessions addressing issues like bioterrism, women in science and funding problems.

The vastness of the poster hall was initially quite daunting.  There were endless rows of posters and company stands, but once you learnt to navigate between the sales reps handing out bouncing balls and enthusiastic people beckoning to you by their posters, it all became much more manageable.  Our poster session was on the last day.  It was very useful to talk to lots of people about Myosin VI and the Golgi complex, and receive some helpful suggestions.  Also interesting was the chance to match faces to names I knew from papers.

Although the conference itself was action-packed from dawn until late in the evening, there were still opportunities to visit some of the impressive Presidential monuments and fascinating Smithsonian museums. Early one morning I explored Rock Creek Park on the conference Carl Zeiss 10km road run, and we spent a pleasanst evening at the social event at the Corcoran Art Gallery.

The entire trip was both very interesting and enjoyable.

Claire Warner
University of Cambridge