Back in the Conference Game
After over one year, we have finally been able to participate to conferences in person! Each conference did an excellent job implementing the appropriate safety measures; thereby allowing us to enjoy, albeit briefly, a feeling of normalcy.
During the end of August we were happy to be back in Smögen for the 18th Smögen Summer Symposium on Virology. This annual meeting brings together researchers working on all aspects of virology; from fundamental research to clinical virology and epidemiology. It is usually organized by the Swedish Society for Virology, but this year it was arranged by the Virus- and Pandemifonden. Our lab got excellent exposure here as several of our group members had the opportunity to present their work. Lifeng, Dario, and Kerstin had posters. While Hudson and Konrad were able to give oral presentations. Hudson presented his “Cellular Taxidermy” that can be used to look at host membrane and virus interactions. Konrad gave a summary of his recently published work on the binding kinetics of human noroviruses.
The WE-Heraeus-Seminar on “Tethered Membranes: Fundamentals and Applications” took place directly after the Smögen symposium. This was a hybrid event hosted at the Physikzentrum Bad Honnef (in Germany) and sponsored by the Wilhelm und Else Heraeus-Stiftung. Together with Claudia Steinem and Fredrik Höök, Marta was one of the scientific organizers who made this meeting possible. The aim of the meeting was to bring together scientists working with lipid assemblies as cell membrane mimics. We learned about recent advances in the production and characterization of such tools and received an overview on their applications; which range from biosensing and drug delivery to providing models of the cell surface for the study of virus-membrane interactions (multiple groups presented on this topic!). As it is a rather small and focused seminar, it gave great opportunities to network with key players in the field, to be able to help troubleshoot each other’s setbacks in the lab, and to discuss unpublished results. Marta presented the groups work in her lecture “Virus diffusion at the cell surface: from cell-surface mimics to live cell microscopy”. Fouzia, Konrad, Hudson, and Kerstin presented posters in both online and on-site poster sessions. Hudson was awarded a poster prize—congratulations!
We are looking forward to the next meetings and conferences!