Successful year for BSI South Wales Immunology Group
The South Wales regional group of the British Society for Immunology is looking back at their most successful year since their foundation, dominated by their hosting of the BSI Summer School 2011, a full-day career workshop for PhD students, and a seminar programme comprising a total of 19 invited speakers.
The activities in the new budget year 2011/2012 started with a bang - from 5-8 July 2011 members of the BSI South Wales Immunology Group (Awen Gallimore, James Matthews, Matthias Eberl and Andy Godkin) organised the BSI Summer School 2011 at the stunning St Donat's Castle, Llantwit Major.
This event, targeted at PhD students and early postdocs, attracted over 100 delegates from 23 different countries and boasted an outstanding international faculty. Our guests included Peter Parham (Stanford/USA), Ken Murphy (St Louis/USA), Jamie Rossjohn (Melbourne/Australia), Ludvig Sollid (Oslo/Norway), Kees Melief (Leiden/The Netherlands), Anne Cooke (Cambridge), Graham Anderson (Birmingham), Adrian Hayday (London), Andrew McMichael (Oxford) and David Wraith (Bristol) as well as Bernhard Moser and Geraint Williams from Cardiff.
Thanks to all speakers, delegates, tutors, sponsors, organisers and helpers for a fantastic meeting!
On 19 October 2011 the BSI South Wales Immunology Group hosted the inaugural “Life after your PhD” career workshop that over thirty PhD students attended. Speakers ranged from academic career fellows to a trainee patent attorney and a company director who all had one thing in common - they had completed undergraduate or postgraduate programmes at Cardiff University. Talks were given by Dave Cole, Tim Hughes, James Matthews, Sara Williams, Rhodri Turner, Ian Weeks, Abi Carter and Lee Samuel.
Finally, the seminar series run by the BSI South Wales Immunology Group reached an all-time high in 2011/2012, with a total of 19 national and international scientists giving inspiring talks.
Our speakers included David Johnson (Brisbane/Australia), Doug Lowrie (Shanghai/China), Marco Cassatella (Verona/Italy), Kingston Mills (Dublin/Ireland), Francesco Dieli (Palermo/Italy), Wilhelm Schwaeble (Leicester), Martin Sheldon (Swansea), David Wraith (Bristol), Brian Willet (Glasgow), Henning Walczak (London), Marco Purbhoo (London), Rick Maizels (Edinburgh), Jian-Guo Chai (London), Peter Openshaw (London), Alexandre Potocnik (London) and Antal Rot (Birmingham) as well as Pierre Rizkallah, Kathy Triantafilou and Michelle Janas from Cardiff.
We wish to express our sincere thanks to Steve Man for his long-term services as Group Treasurer and to Laura Evans who steps down as Early Career Representative, and welcome Sophie Wehenkel (Student Representative) and Joanna Giles (Postdoc Representative) as new members on our group committee.
We also thank all our supporters for their contributions and look forward to an exciting year 2012/2013!
- Published
- 25th June 2012