COMBIO 2010

Yesterday evening I returned from COMBIO 2010 in Christchurch. There were several hundred participants, mostly from New Zealand and Australia but some from the U.S., Europe, and Asia. There were talks on protein structure and function, microbiology, genetics, signal transduction, plant biology, agriculture, and medical science. The keynote speaker on Sunday evening was Sir John Walker, who solved the structure of ATP synthetase. Monday through Thursday were jam packed with talks and poster sessions. One topic that I learned a particularly large amount about and became very interested in is drug design. There were some very neat ideas presented, such as designing compounds that mimick the transition state of the substrate-->product reaction and high-throughput crystallography to screen for small compounds that bind the active site of an enzyme. I also went to some talks on biofilms and plant-microbe interactions, the carbon and nitrogen cycles, protein kinases, mammalian development, and more. Most evenings there were drinks and social functions, and on Wednesday there was a gala dinner at an old air force base turned into museum. It was neat to see a bunch or scientists on the dance floor, including Sir John Walker.

On Tuesday evening after the talks I took a walk up into the Port Hills to the west of Christchurch. There were many hiking and mountain biking tracks to explore and good views of the city and Canterbury plain. I'm glad I discovered this playground of Christchurch because in previous visits to Christchurch I hadn't been particularly impressed by the city.

My talk on Wednesday afternoon, as part of the New Zealand Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology student speaker competition, went well. I got several questions at the end including one from Sir John Walker! There were five speakers total from the various regions and they all gave good talks. So far my masters project has been entirely in developing a method, so the other students all had more biologically relevant results than I did. The winner of the competition found a link between ascorbate and cancer.

Today has been very busy as I cleaned up my flat for inspection by the landlord, organized my cycling supplies, moved all my things to a storage unit down the road, and got things sorted in lab. Tomorrow I depart on my bicycle for the West Coast and on up to Hokitika, where I'm flying home from. It will be an 11-day trip, between 700-800 kms. No day is super long as I've planned it, so I'll have plenty of time to enjoy the scenery. Sigurd may join me for a day on the Otago Rail Trail!