This week marked my return to face-to-face conferences and the realisation of just how much I’ve missed them! The British Society of Matrix Biology Autumn meeting was held at the stunning Liverpool docks in the maritime museum. About 100 delegates discussed the most important parts of life in a collegiate, stimulating and often amusing couple of days. I’m coming away inspired and motivated, with new ideas and energy, but this post isn’t about that.
As is tradition. Scientific meetings mark important way points in a student’s scientific journey and it’s always a time of pride for supervisors to see the progress a student has made. With only a little bit of arm-twisting, Natasha, Bilge and Fawziah were convinced to stand proudly beside their work.
Natasha Chavda presented her progress in generating new imaging tools to study LaNts and laminins interplay, dynamics and turnover. Watch out for cool movies coming soon. Bilge Sari generated interest in her striking new findings relating to LaNt alpha31 influence on pancreatic cancer cells. Fawziah Asiri shared her work into dissecting LaNt mediated signalling pathway modification in breast cancer, including some exciting new findings linking LaNt to some well-known breast cancer-associated gene.
Putting together these posters made all three students really appreciate just how far they have come and, the discussions confirm what I already know, that the work is excellent, interesting and going in an exciting direction.
In the spirit of the “they grow up so fast” post. Former Masters student Olivia Kingston (2019) also presented some work; always nice to see a former student’s continued journey.
And, for completion, I too presented a poster (although, the work, of course, was from former lab members Lee Troughton, Conor Sugden and Danielle O’Loughlin). One of the stipulations of posting the pics above was that my own “they grow up so fast” pics also appeared!
LaNts and Laminins 