CGEM scientific away day 2018
January 2018: This year’s all-staff away day focused on student presentations, highlighting the future of CGEM research.
The Annual CGEM Scientific Away day for all staff and affiliates of the Centre was held on January 16th at the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, on the snowiest day of winter so far! Staff from all sections of CGEM participated, with a variety of excellent presentations from senior academics and the genomic services leads. The main focus this year was on PhD students within the final 12 months of completion, showcasing the future of scientific research within CGEM, and hopefully, beyond.
The eight students were given 10 minutes to present their research to the capacity audience, followed by 5 minutes of questions. The talks were judged by three external experts who were impressed with the quality of the presentations. It was a close-fought competition and in the end two prizes were awarded of £50 each to Fiona McLachlan and Sachin Wani, with an honourable mention to Danny Laurent. Both the winners gave excellent, clear and accessible presentations that began with compelling reasons for studying the problem. They then described high quality experiments that provided new insights into the problem. In each case the slides were well set out and informative. They also gave knowledgeable answers to questions. Danny got a special mention because his talk was so engaging with much enthusiasm and humour. His science is novel and exciting but with 12 months remaining on his PhD, he doesn’t yet have the analysis completed on the results of key experiments.
Professor Nick Hastie wrapped up with an optimistic look to the future, saying what an exciting time it is to be working in this field of research. He said how much he had learned throughout the day and was excited by the numerous examples of how scientific research is being applied to improve medical approaches and patient healthcare. Nick emphasised how positive it is that so many people participated in the day, which demonstrates enthusiasm within the Centre to work together to build on the strengths within CGEM and promote and develop our excellent students and early career researchers. He also made an important point for the students, that there are a range of new careers on offer such as Clinical Genome Scientists and Molecular Pathologists are great alternatives to an academic career. Nick finished by encouraging everyone to never stop asking questions, and to keep learning and sharing that new knowledge.