Visitor of the Week: Sushil Tripathi

Meet Sushil Tripathi of the University of Helsinki (Finland). Sushil, a postdoc at Tomi Makela's lab, is on campus for the 2017 Biology of Cancer: Microenvironment & Metastasis where he presented a poster titled "Transcriptomic signatures identifying involvement of LKB1 substrates in gastrointestinal tumorigenesis". 

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
My primary research interests are studying the sequence of events critical for tumour formation (i.e., tumorigenesis) and its spread (i.e., metastasis). I am currently working on investigating how LKB1 and its known 14 kinase substrates are involved in controlling lung and gastrointestinal tumorigenesis.

Was there something specific about the Biology of Cancer: Microenvironment & Metastasis meeting that drew you to attend?
I decided to attend the meeting based on its thematic area matching with my research interests. On top of that, I took this meeting as an opportunity to share and discuss my current research and findings with other eminent scientists for their insight and advice.

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
If I have to choose just one takeaway from this meeting, then it would be the importance of getting goal-oriented career guidance for my future endeavors.

How many CSHL meetings have you attended?
This is my first time attending a CSHL meeting and I am considering to attend the Systems Biology: Global Regulation of Gene Expression scheduled for March 2018.

If someone curious in attending a future iteration of Biology of Cancer: Microenvironment & Metastasis meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
Apart from listening to outstanding scientific talks concerning current progresses in the field, this meeting is a fantastic platform to communicate science and interact with other scientists for their critical input. Also, from a future career perspective, this meeting provides you with opportunities to network with other researchers/research groups. 

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I must say it’s a beautiful campus and taking a detour was bliss. I enjoyed the meals and the mealtimes served as additional opportunities to interact with even more people.

Thank you to Sushil for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course – go here. 

Visitor of the Week: Ilse Eidhof

Meet Ilse Eidhof of The Radboudumc (Netherlands). The PhD student is part of the Drosophila Models of Brain Disorders Research Group led by Annette Schenck. A 2016 Drosophila Neurobiology course alumna, Ilse returns to campus for the 2017 Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting where she presented a poster.

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I am interested in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, and use the fruit fly as the model to understand the mechanisms underlying these disorders. 

Was there something specific about the Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting that drew you to attend?
I have a number of reasons for attending this meeting. For one, I believe this meeting to be one of the greatest in Drosophila neurobiology and its long list of speakers consists of those who are absolutely the best in the field. In addition, this meeting provides a platform to interact with other Drosophila scientists; and I am particularly interested in new technological innovations that are presented and discussed here.  

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
Mainly the current state of today's Drosophila research and which new tools and techniques I can incorporate into my own work.

How many CSHL meetings have you attended? How about CSHL courses?
This is the second meeting at CSHL I am attending; and in 2016 I was part of the Drosophila Neurobiology: Genes, Circuits & Behaviors course. 

If someone curious in attending a future iteration of Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
I would definitely recommend those interested in this meeting to attend because I believe it to be one of the biggest and greatest in the field. It covers a broad range of topics - from basic neurobiological questions to technological innovations and disease modeling - that there is basically a topic of interest for everyone. Plus, the overall quality of the research presented is quite amazing. 

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I really like the open atmosphere at CSHL; and there are numerous opportunities to meet and interact with fellow scientists in the field. 

Thank you to Ilse for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course – go here. 

Visitor of the Week: Suguru Takagi

Meet Suguru Takagi of The University of Tokyo (Japan). A PhD student in Akinao Nose's lab, Suguru visits CSHL for the first time to attend the 2017 Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting where he presented a poster. 

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
My research interest is to elucidate the neural-circuit mechanisms that enable an animal to respond adaptively to a given sensory cue. I take advantage of cutting-edge toolkits to tackle this problem in collaboration with various experts in the field.

Was there something specific about the Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting that drew you to apply?
A number of people from our lab have attended the Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting and I have always heard that this meeting is wonderful. In addition, it is very inspiring to have the opportunity to actually talk with the speakers and presenters who I had only previously known from publications. 

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
My key takeaway is the importance of cross-disciplinary interactions. The experience of gaining new perspectives during the many in-depth discussions I had regarding my work and my fellow attendees' work is fascinating.

How many CSHL meetings have you attended?
This is my first time attending a CSHL meeting, and it has been amazing so far!

If someone curious in attending a future iteration of the Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
Just attend and join in on the meeting. It is a great opportunity to get some inspiration from all of those who work in this field.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
The site is calm and cozy; with the beach being my favorite. I envy those who work here with nice scenery and facilities.

Thank you to Suguru for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course – go here. 

Visitor of the Week: Semil Choksi

Meet Semil Choksi of the University of California, San Francisco. An assistant professional scientist in Jeremy Reiter's lab, Semil is on campus for the Stem Cell Biology meeting where he presented a poster titled "Generation of airway stem cells by direct transcriptional reprogramming for disease modeling and regeneration."

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I study how cell fates are determined in the airway, focusing on motile ciliated cells in the mouse. I am particularly interested in how airway stem cells, which give rise to ciliated cells, are transcriptionally defined.

Was there something specific about the Stem Cell Biology meeting that drew you to apply?
Initially, meeting speakers Brigid Hogan and Jayaraj Rajagopal - who both work on airway stem cells - drew me to attend the meeting. However, I was also excited to learn about novel methods for enhancing cell reprogramming. 

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
Single cell transcriptional profiling is a powerful tool for tracking reprogramming and differentiation (but should not be used to infer lineage relationships).

If someone curious in attending a future iteration of Stem Cell Biology meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
This is an intimate, small meeting that will allow you to interact with most of the presenters over the week. I found it to be much more rewarding than larger stem cell meetings.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
The CSHL campus is beautiful to explore in the downtime between sessions. I also really enjoyed my interactions with the other attendees.

Thank you to Semil for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course – go here. 

A Word From: Katherine Hajjar & Jacob Rand

Last week, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory hosted Annexins 2017. This international conference is held in a different location every other year, and CSHL was chosen for the 2017 meeting because of its accessibility, on-campus amenities, and proximity to New York City. We are proud to have hosted the Annexins community and checked in with two of its three organizers – Katherine Hajjar and Jacob Rand – to talk about the conference. 

As the annexin community grows, the organizers do their part to ensure the “newcomers” take part in the conference: 

Speaking of abstracts, Annexins 2017 did adopt the CSHL Meetings & Courses tradition of selecting a majority of talks from the submitted abstracts.

We ended the chat talking about the annexin community: 

Thank you to the organizers for choosing Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as the venue for Annexins 2017!

For more conversations with other meeting organizers, check out our A Word From... series.