Written by: Peter Grin, PhD Candidate, Overall Lab
Supervisor: Dr. Christopher Overall
Conference: 2022 Gordon Research Seminar and Conference – Proteolytic Enzymes and Their Inhibitors, June 4 – 10, 2022
Location: Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco, Italy
Oral Presentation Title: Defeating an antiviral interferon response by SARS-CoV-2 main protease (3CLpro) cleavage
I would like to thank the CBR for its support through the 2022 CBR Travel Award, which helped to fund my attendance at the 2022 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Proteolytic Enzymes and Their Inhibitors in Tuscany, Italy, the premier conference in the field. This was my first experience at a GRC, and based on the high level of research presented, as well as networking with trainees and professors from around the world at this conference, I would highly recommend graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at the CBR to seek the opportunity to attend a GRC related to their topic of research.
This conference started with the Gordon Research Seminar on June 4th, 2022, which was geared towards select trainees who were given the opportunity to present their research via oral presentations or posters. I presented a 20 min talk on my PhD work focused on my investigations and discoveries concerning the main protease from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), also known as 3C-like protease (3CLpro). This spurred conversations with several newly met PhD students, as well as Dr. Bob Lazarus, a prominent senior scientist from Genentech who also gave a talk about his work in industry. My talk was well-received as I was fortunate to earn another travel award from the GRC for the Best Oral Presentation given at the Gordon Research Seminar.
The networking was exceptional because every breakfast, lunch, and dinner was with a new group of fellow conference attendees, yielding prime opportunities to meet many researchers who share a common interest in studying proteases.
On June 5th, we were joined by professors and their labs from all over Europe and North America for four more days of rigorous scientific talks and poster sessions, as well as unparalleled networking opportunities. The networking was exceptional because every breakfast, lunch, and dinner was with a new group of fellow conference attendees, yielding prime opportunities to meet many researchers who share a common interest in studying proteases. At one of these lunches, I sat next to another senior industry scientist named Dr. Derek Wolan to learn how one might obtain an industry postdoctoral fellowship position at Genentech. After being joined by four professors, all from different countries around Europe, I was pleasantly surprised to be talking about travel, and skiing, in addition to science, while enjoying delicious pasta and Italian wine.
It is difficult to quantify just how much I learned from this invaluable conference, not only in the form of new scientific knowledge and gaining insights on new directions to take my own research in, but also on how quickly collaborations were formed and my networks of tomorrow established. All of this was made possible thanks in part to the CBR Travel Award.