EMBO conference - day one

This ConferenceCast report is from Uli Rockenbauch (working in the Biozentrum Basel institute) who is at the EMBO meeting in Austria. He'll be sending us live reports for the next few days while the conference is on.

Name: Uli Rockenbauch

Location: Vienna, Austria.

Date: 10th September 2011

Event: The EMBO meeting.

"Remember: KISS", Samuel Caddick said. "Keep It Simple & Stupid."

I started my personal agenda at this year's EMBO meeting with a Make science make sense workshop. How appropriate: I had left Basel in the morning, at a time when all my colleagues were busily engaged in the 40th anniversary celebrations of my institute, the Biozentrum. Two days ofopening the building's doors to the public, showing them what we do and inspiring some enthusiasm about our research. Ironically enough, the workshop I attended today here in Vienna was aimed at answering one of our most pressing questions during the preparations: How do I tell a lay person about my science?

Interesting insight #1:

According to a Eurobarometer survey, more than 50% of EU citizens would like to learn about science from - scientists. Not journalists, not politicians. Now that's good news, because after all journalists do get it quite wrong sometimes. An example occured fairly recently a major German news website announced that "Scientists can now create life". The actual experiment in fact was actually the successful replacement of bacterial DNA with synthetic DNA in the Venter laboratory. (A fantastic step ahead, yes, but the news reporters who wrote that were blatently responsible for a misleading title!)

Interesting insight #2:

Scientists care about data > conclusions > global impact.

The public cares about global impact > conclusions > data.

Good to keep that in mind next time someone asks me what exactly I do in my research...

I was also pleased to meet Bonnie Bassler today! We tried several years in a row to invite her to our PhD Student Symposium, and out of all the celebrities that turned us down she wrote by far the nicest and most regretful emails. One of my colleagues once described her as 'the grande dame of quorum sensing', and he certainly had a point. Today in the plenary session she gave a great talk about the principleshow bacteria communicate with each other to measure their cell density, and about the signalling pathways required for the process. Catchy topic, impressive results, and wonderfully wrapped up into a talk that was both entertaining and insightful.