CGEM Scientific Away Day 2019

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On Wednesday 1 May 2019 the Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine held its annual away day in the Royal Society of Edinburgh.  There was an emphasis on collaboration and interdisciplinarity throughout the day, with speakers from across the Centre, College and wider University presenting.

The morning began with a talk from Centre Director Professor Tim Aitman on the successes and achievements seen over the last year, and a recognition of the challenges and opportunities that the Centre, and the field of research can expect in the future.  The importance of interdisciplinary engagement was highlighted by presentations on the MRC IGMM Cross-Disciplinary Fellowship (XDF) programme.  Professor Guido Sanguinetti, member of the board of XDF Directors, presented an introduction to the structure and aims of the programme, why it was set up and the opportunities that it presents.  Prof Sanguinetti then chaired the first session of the day in which two of the current cross-disciplinary fellows, Ava Khamesh and Andreas Kapourani, presented the projects on which they have been working.  The keynote speaker for the day was Prof Michael Rovatsos from the newly created Bayes Centre, who spoke about the Edinburgh City Deal and the opportunities and challenges of the Data-Driven Innovation programme.

Also discussing data and collaboration was Alison Meynert, Manager of the MRC IGMM Bioinformatics Analysis Core facility, who spoke about how the facility team can work with researchers to help get the most out of experimental data generated. 

The remainder of the day consisted of presentations from a range of speakers from across the breadth of the Centre.  There were talks representing every section, from PIs, post-doctoral researchers and students.  The varied topics ranged from DNA methylation as a biomarker for neurological conditions, clinical trials to predict disease outcome in Inflammatory Bowel Disease, and gene therapy approaches for treatment of pulmonary fibrosis.

In the final session of the day were talks from two new recruits to the MRC IGMM, Peter Bankhead and Ashish Dhir, who both presented their research to date and the directions they plan to pursue in the future. 

Thanks to all the speakers who presented on the day, and to everyone in attendance for an interesting and productive meeting.

The excellent presentations and discussion at the end of each talk and during the meeting breaks, I believe this made the Away Day amongst the best and most productive.

Professor Tim Aitman