2nd Annual European MicroCal Meeting – Feedback from Day 1
Patrick England from the Institut Pasteur in Paris opened the Second European MicroCal meeting by welcoming all of the 100+ delegates, on behalf of the hosts and organisers: Institut Pasteur, the Arbre committee and Malvern Instruments.
”I liked the workshop session and that the meeting was very interactive. The venue was great and easily accessible.” Blanca Lopez, Copenhagen University
Morning session
The day started with Geoff Holdgate kicking off the interaction analysis session, his talk centering on the value of using an orthogonal approach, and describing his use of a MicroCal Isothermal Titration Calorimeter for study of the structural biology of FGFR1 .
This was followed by great talks by Sophie Rahuel-Clermont and Daumantas Matulis.
There were many interesting questions from the audience for each of the speakers, creating a great interactive atmosphere.
“I liked the meeting, many presentations were relevant to my research and some gave inspiration and new ideas to explore” Irina Pozdnyakova, University of Copenhagen
We were then treated to 9 superb flash posters, where each speaker had 2 minutes to present a summary of their research – this demonstrated a wide variety of applications of microcalorimetry, providing a very stimulating scientific environment.
To complete the morning session, we shifted our focus to Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). This session commenced with Kasper Huus of Novo Nordisk presenting a very interesting talk on his use of DSC to study insulin and predict stability.
This session provided some great insights into novel applications, from the use of DSC to study rabies, to its employment as a diagnostic tool for a variety of diseases through the analysis of serum and blood. By obtaining a DSC profile, clear differences could be seen between healthy patients and patients with a known disease. The feedback from delegates was that this session provided lots of information about the wide-ranging use of DSC for applications they had not previously considered.
”The great thing with this meeting is that every presentation is interesting and so relevant for my research” Daumantas Matulis, Vilnius University
Afternoon session
Natalia Markova (Malvern Instruments) opened the afternoon session by chairing a panel discussion reacted to DSC experimental setup and data analysis. This was a great, interactive session in which Geoff Holdgate initiated the first discussion point – baseline selection in DSC – this was followed by lots of interaction from the audience.
The afternoon session included another fabulous range of scientific presentations including Isothermal Titration Calorimetry (ITC) talks from Isabel Alves on peptide/lipid interactions, from Kristoffer Brännström on enthalpy as a predictor for selectivity, highlighting the use of MicroCal Auto-ITC in a multi-user environment and Cameron Mackereth linking ITC results to studies in live organisms!
The final session of the day included four superb presentations from Olivier Braissant, Peter Westh, Anne-Marie Lambeir and Pascal Zihlmann. The session was focused on novel applications for ITC, featuring use of this technology for the study of enzyme kinetics and interaction kinetics.
“I liked the way the sessions were structured around different topics and the meeting was very useful also for novice users” Inna Rozman Grinberg, Stockholm University
To summarize, the first day of the meeting generated a great buzz amongst the delegates and featured lots of great scientific content on how microcalorimetry has assisted scientists from various disciplines in a wide range of applications. We were delighted to receive lots of positive comments from the delegates about the program and the quality of the talks from our customers!
The first evening ended with a dinner on the River Seine. Meeting bloggers Maria Walton and Eva-Karin Jyde (both Malvern Instruments) handed out quizzes whilst the delegates waited to board the boat.
This was a small ice-breaker which included MicroCal questions for the delegates, and proved to be a true challenge even for the most enthusiastic MicroCal users! We were also joined by our youngest calorimetry delegate, a beautiful and very well-behaved 9-month-old baby.
Delegates were treated to breathtaking views of the Paris skyline and historic sights, including the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral. Not a bad end to an excellent day!
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