Lectures galore, PhD wisdom, and more freebies!

My my, was Thursday a packed day here at TAGC 2016. I had an early start with the Genetics and Determinants of Health Joint Plenary Session at 7:45 am, and was very thankful for the coffee stations positioned strategically throughout the conference halls! Before the session, I had breakfast with two postdocs from South Korea. Their 12 hour flight made my journey seem like a breeze! Once at the session, I whipped open my program book to the handy note-taking section (see above picture). The first speaker was Leonard Zon from Boston Children's Hospital. Zon made the world's first model of nevi (moles) in zebrafish in order to model melanoma! From this, his team is looking to identify new drugs to treat melanoma. Next up was Amita Sehgal, a researcher who studies sleep by using Drosophila models. I am amazed at how much we can learn by studying model organisms. According to Sehgal, the same genes implicated in Drosophila sleep are also involved with sleep in humans. Interestingly, male flies also have more robust "afternoon siestas" than female flies, and adult male flies who were deprived of sleep early on in life show impaired courtship behaviours. Sehgal showed a video to show the comparison between adult males deprived of sleep early in life versus those who were not, and the difference in speed was significant! Apparently, the reason why young flies sleep more than adult flies is due to lower activity of certain dopaminergic neurons that facilitate waking.

The third speaker, Harry Dietz from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, described the characteristic progressive widening of the aorta in individuals with Marfan syndrome. As you can imagine, this can be detrimental and may lead to "extraction" of the aorta, where it basically unzips itself due to the bulge. In mouse models of Marfan Syndrome, 100% of mice died due to aortic aneurysm. Dietz and his team identified potential new treatments by studying this model - so amazing!

Next up was Francis Collins! I was very excited to hear him speak. He did not present any of his own recent research, however, but gave a talk with lots of graphs and charts showing where funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH) is going. Based on the data, almost half of NIH grants go towards mouse research. Additionally, while funding for Drosophila and C. elegans research is decreasing, the success rate for grant applications for studies involving these model organisms is high. Collins also addressed the emerging era of big data and expressed that we must "become data scientists or suffer the consequences." He stressed the need to come up with standards for model organism databases. Of course, this is a challenging task, but in the long run will be more efficient and user-friendly, especially when studying more than one model organism.

After the session finished, I had a great conversation with the lady sitting next to me. She was also from the Drosophila community, and after a couple decades teaching, became a bureaucrat. She was so encouraging wanted to hear all about my research project! 

At 10am (it's amazing how much can happen before 10am here!) I headed to the Drosophila plenary Session I. One of my favorite talks from this session was by Ingrid Lohmann, who described the role of a particular hox gene transcription factor in the motor control of feeding in Drosophila. Another fascinating talk was by Annette Schneck. I appreciated how her talk was clear and easy to follow, as many speakers go at lightning speed. She focused on the role of habituation as a fundamental form of learning and a pre-requisite for higher cognitive functioning. Apparently, in many intellectual disability disorders, habituation is impaired, and therefore, the basis for higher cognitive functions (such as the ability to filter stimuli) is impaired. Through a series of experiments, Schneck and her team identified 98 novel genes required for habituation!  

This was my view while I ate lunch with another undergrad student named Alex from Stanford University. He told me about what he is doing studying yeast and anti-fungal resistance, and I gave him a synopsis of my research with Drosophila genetics. I asked him why he chose Stanford University, and he said he wanted to attend a school that had strong departments in addition to a strong science department. Hear, hear! I think it's great that he wanted to take his education to a whole new level by expanding his horizons beyond science.

Next up were the poster presentations! Here I am with Sami, fellow bioinformatics and Drosophila undergrad researcher from UFV. This photo was taken the night before at the Opening Mixer. Unfortunately photos weren't permitted during the poster presentations. I had the opportunity to talk with lots of PhD students, postdocs, and a few fellow undergrads! 

Following the poster presentations I headed to the Plenary Session and Workshop for Undergraduate Researchers. I am so glad that I attended this session. Not only were the speakers exceptionally good, but there was also a panel of PhD students who answered questions and gave copious amounts of advice. Their backgrounds and interests were all slightly different, making it a very well-rounded panel, and it was clear that they loved what they were doing. Some questions they were asked included: Does it look bad to take a gap year after undergrad? (Most said no - as long as you are doing something productive, interesting, or helps you grow and mature as a person) If you could change one thing about your journey to grad school what would it be? To this many said they would network more, be bolder, and believe more in themselves! One of the first speakers presented on why Drosophila sperm are so long - 28 times the length of their body to be exact! The main school of thought is that sperm and female seminal receptacles (SRs) are co-evolving, and therefore, longer sperm are selected for in the case of females with bigger SRs. 

After the session I took the speedy elevator down to the cafeteria to grab a quick dinner. I read through my notes, a few abstracts, typed some thoughts and memories on this good ol' blog, and chowed down on my sandwich. After dinner I made my way to a session on Ciliate Genome Stability and Dynamics, maneuvering my way through swarms of conference attendees. I wish I had more background knowledge on ciliate genetics before heading into this session, because, as I found out later, ciliates are unique in that they have two nuceli, one called the micronucleus and the other the macronucleus. All of the speakers in this particular session studied a ciliate called Tetrahyhemna thermophila. What I appreciated about one of the speakers in particular was her complete honesty. After reporting a strange finding, the speaker said, "I don't know what's going on... just yet." I liked how she was honest, but ended on a positive note that, although they may not possess the knowledge YET, each experiment beings them one step closer!

Also! The picture above shows one of the cool freebies included in our welcome package: a genetics themed deck of cards!

Unlike the glorious sunshine lighting up this photo, by the time I made it back to my room it was dark and I was ready for some sleep (And a time to recharge my brain after a day full of talks!) Friday will no doubt be just as packed as today, and I'm really looking forward to the Women in Genetics Panel in the evening. Until then folks! 

- Vivienne