Tomorrow’s Giants conference in July

Posted on 24 Mar 2010 by Maxine Clarke

The Royal Society and Nature present: Tomorrow’s Giants, a conference on 1 July 2010 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London, UK

Tomorrow’s Giants will bring together scientists and policy makers to gather scientists vision of the next 50 years, to address questions such as: What is required to enable academic achievement of the highest quality? What will science be like in 10 and in 50 years time? What will be the main goals and challenges?

Attendance at the conference is by application. Applications are encouraged by The Royal Society and Nature from early and mid-career scientists with an interest in the key topics of the conference and who wish to make a positive contribution to the parallel sessions and the panel discussion.

PROGRAMME

Thursday, July 1, 2010

9:00 a.m.

-Welcome and Introduction

-Lord Martin Rees, President, The Royal Society – Philip Campbell, Editor in Chief, Nature

9:30 a.m.

-Parallel Sessions

-Leaders in the field will be raising questions and looking at the challenges across three major themes identified for Tomorrow’s giants.

-Data

Moderator: Dame Sally C Davies, Director General of Research and Development and Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department of Health and NHS -Careers

Moderator: Robin Williams, Director of the Research Centre for Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh -Measuring and assessing

Moderator: David Sweeney, Director (Research, Innovation and Skills) at the Higher Education Funding Council for England

11:00 a.m.

-Feedback session

1:45 p.m.

Keynote Speaker: Dame Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science, University of Southampton

2:45 p.m.

-Panel Discussion

-Our Panel of leading policy and decision makers along with representatives for the three themes will answer questions raised in the parallel sessions and discuss selected topics from the event’s Nature Network Forum

-Discussants:

John Beringer, University of Bristol

Lord Paul Drayson, Minister for Science and Innovation Tony Hey, Corporate Vice President of External Research, Microsoft Terence Kealey, Vice-Chancellor, University of Buckingham Adrian Smith, Director General, Science and Research, BIS

3:45 p.m.

-Concluding remarks

Tomorrow’s Giants conference website and online application form.

Nature Events directory available as free digital edition

Posted on 11 Feb 2010 by Maxine Clarke

This year’s Nature events directory is now available as a digital edition.

Nature events is the premier resource for scientists looking for the latest scientific conferences, courses, meetings and symposia. It is an essential reference guide to scientific events worldwide: for delegates discussing hot issues and opinion, through to networking and collaboration, events provide a platform for learning and advancement. To help plan which events to attend in the year ahead, Nature events publish an annual directory of global scientific events in the last Nature issue of every year. The annual Nature events Directory is also available as a print supplement and a useful digital edition that is free to download on natureevents.com.

Looking for science events? Start your search now

Looking to promote an event? Find out more in the Event Organizers section of the Nature events website, or contact your Regional Representative

Nature Chemical Biology’s symposium series

Posted on 17 Nov 2009 by Maxine Clarke

Taken from the Editorial in the November issue of Nature Chemical Biology (5, 863; 2009):

In the past decade, chemical biology has expanded to embrace increasingly diverse research areas at the interface of chemistry and biology. Nature Chemical Biology has strived to highlight this aspect of chemical biology by publishing papers that apply chemical and biological approaches to achieving a greater mechanistic understanding of biological systems. The field also offers small molecules and tools that can be used to manipulate chemical and biological systems with unprecedented molecular precision. Given these basic and applied aspects, chemical biology has naturally resonated with fields that rely upon integrated chemical and biological insights. No field has been more affected than drug discovery.

This synergy was highlighted at the third Nature Chemical Biology symposium Chemical Biology in Drug Discovery, held on 19–20 September 2009 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The organizers were Paul Workman (Cancer Research UK Centre for Cancer Therapeutics at The Institute of Cancer Research, UK), Giulio Superti-Furga (Center for Molecular Medicine, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria), Brian Shoichet (University of California, San Francisco, USA), and Joanne Kotz (Nature Chemical Biology, USA)

Though the symposium focused primarily on the ways that chemical biology will shape the science of drug discovery, it was clear that chemical biologists, who are equipped with a substantial toolbox of ‘pathfinder compounds’, chemical methods and other technologies, represent a new generation of talented interdisciplinary scientists who will bring fresh insights to the drug discovery culture. Pharmaceutical companies should make every effort to integrate chemical biology programs and scientists into their portfolios to promote innovation in chemical biology for drug discovery.

A primary aim of the Nature Chemical Biology symposium series has been to nucleate discussions among scientists who share common interests but approach these scientific areas from different perspectives or with divergent tools. We look forward to bringing together other groups at the frontiers of chemical biology, and we welcome suggestions for future symposium topics.

Nature Chemical Biology:

Journal home page.

About the journal’s web site.

Focuses and supplements.

Guide for authors and peer-reviewers.

About the editors.

Contact the journal.

Nature Conferences main index.

Nature Medicine’s wake-up call on intellectual property rights

Posted on 12 Nov 2009 by Maxine Clarke

Intellectual-property protection is a key driver of innovation, and researchers are always keen to file patents to shield their discoveries. Yet scientists often have an uninformed view of the value of their intellectual property. This naiveté slows down translational research. So concludes the November Editorial in Nature Medicine (15, 1229; 2009).

An informal poll conducted by the Nature Medicine editors revealed that “about two-thirds of scientists, particularly in Europe, don’t know who owns the intellectual rights to the discoveries made in their labs. A similarly high proportion don’t know if there are any provisions in their job contracts assigning them any rights over their discovery. And roughly half don’t even know whether they are legally entitled to open a company based on their research.” Ironically, states the Editorial, these are the very same scientists who dream of patenting their work and reaping the financial benefits. Before thinking about licenses (the essential first step), the Editorial continues, “it’s important to realize that the decision to file a patent seldom rests with the scientists, but rather with the technology transfer office (TTO) of their institution. Strangely enough, although most of the scientists we surveyed were interested in patenting their work and knew about the importance of the TTO to this end, over 60% admitted to never having interacted with that office.” After highlighting some of the problems concerning technology transfer offices and investor caution, the Editorial concludes:

“Translational researchers never shy away from the chance to present their science to anyone who might want to invest in it. But they would be well advised to start listening to companies, investors and their own TTOs to develop a better understanding of what they must bring to the table in order to attract financial support. Admittedly, there are very few places where scientists can learn how to engage in this dialogue, but the excuse that provides should be cold comfort given how important this is to the progress of translational research. The creation of forums of this sort should therefore become a priority for universities and research centers alike. A high-profile paper may allow you to get your foot in the door, but it won’t be enough to open it.”

See also the free Nature Medicine podcast, this month looking at the law in the context of the “patent cliff” which pharmaceutical companies are facing.

In other Nature Medicine news, the journal is organizing a colloquium on Systems Biology and HIV Vaccine Development on 8-10 February 2010 in Peachtree City, Georgia, USA. Participants will include HIV researchers and scientists using systems approaches in other areas of biomedical research, who will address how systems biology has provided insight into the immune response and into other areas of medicine, such as cancer and autoimmunity. Also on the agenda for discussion are the technical and bioinformatic challenges associated with using systems biology approaches; the gaps in HIV immunology that need to be resolved to develop an HIV vaccine; whether systems approaches can help to address these questions; and how ‘systems vaccinology’ approaches can be implemented in HIV vaccine development and clinical trial monitoring.

Two views of the Lindau Nobel chemistry laureates’ meeting

Posted on 27 Oct 2009 by Maxine Clarke

Each year since 1951, young researchers and Nobel laureates have gathered on the shores of Lake Constance for a unique scientific conference. In 2009 the meeting was dedicated to chemistry, and laureates and students all came away enriched by their experiences. Martin Chalfie, one of the three recipients of the 2008 Nobel prize in Chemistry, reports what they learned from each other in the November issue of Nature Chemistry (1, 586-587; 2009) He writes:

“From their reading or from simply listening to my talk, the students generated a large number of fascinating questions. They wanted to know details of the experiments and they wanted to discuss potential future experiments. Conclusions about my research that had taken me years to realize (and which I have not written about or described in my talk) were instantly suggested by several of the students at the session. Seeing their excitement and quickness was humbling, but also invigorating.

The meeting allowed the students (as well as the laureates) to broaden their horizons, to have a chance to meet, exchange ideas, and learn about new areas of research from investigators from all over the world (the conference participants came from 67 different countries). The word ‘exchange’ is important here, because I don’t believe that the real benefits were associated with hearing advice from a bunch of older scientists who had been fortunate enough to get some recognition for their work.” The meeting’s significance is “the acknowledgement it gives to young scientists, especially at a time when they do not get much recognition, that they are on their way to succeeding in science, and that we think that they are important. Although they really do not need any seal of approval, everyone likes to get the occasional pat on the back.”

In a companion article in the same issue of Nature Chemistry (1, 587-590; 2009), Jeffrey R. Lancaster, a fourth-year graduate student in the Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, looks back at what he got out of the Lindau meeting: “two subtle points have ultimately distinguished the Lindau meeting for me as a unique event of which I was honoured to have been a part.

First, conversation and the sharing of ideas were fostered not solely between scientists with comparable levels of experience, but also across scientific generations and geographies. I had worthwhile discussions with my peers from Australia, China, India, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain (to name but a few), and was able to speak to scientists at various stages of their careers, from undergraduate to graduate students, postdocs, professors, governmental scientists and, of course, Nobel laureates. Second, the activities pursued by scientists outside of publishable, academic research also featured prominently at the meeting. That scientists might have a life apart from, and in addition to, their research is most often a topic best reserved for conference happy hours, not keynote addresses.”

Scientific American editor talks on the origins of our world, 1 Oct

Posted on 29 Sep 2009 by Maxine Clarke

Via Nature Network: The Acting Editor-in-Chief of Scientific American, Mariette DiChristina, will be talking about the beginning of… everything! The event takes place at the 92YTribeca in New York on Thursday, 1 October at 6:30 p.m. local time. Tickets are $12 and include a one year subscription to Scientific American. For more information check out the 92Y website or read Caryn Shechtman’s Nature Network New York post.

Personal genomes and medicine at the British Library

Posted on 03 Sep 2009 by Maxine Clarke

Personal GenoME & Medicine: Hype or Reality? So runs the title of the next Talkscience evening at the British Library in London on 23 September. As usual, there is a Nature Network forum to provide more details of the event and to start the discussion going online before the meeting itself, so readers are encouraged to check that out and contribute ideas. How is cheaper, faster DNA sequencing helping or hindering our ability to understand disease, treatment and prevention? Which of the many single-nucleotide polymorphisms that have been identified in genome-wide association studies might be causal to a disease? How will advances in genome technologies lead to better diagnosis and treatments? What are the legal, ethical and other issues concerning “direct to consumer” personalised genomics?

These and other topics will be debated on 23 September, in an evening beginning with a talk by Alan Ashworth of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre of the UK Instiute for Cancer Research.

Join and contribute to the associated Nature Network forum.

Other Nature Network forums.

NSMB on US visa procedures for scientists

Posted on 09 Jul 2009 by Maxine Clarke

The US State Department promises to accelerate the visa process for foreign graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, a promise welcomed by Nature Structural & Molecular Biology in its July Editorial (16, 677; 2009). The Editorial decries the occasions when researchers have been severely delayed in trying to obtain or renew visas, leaving some stranded and others unable to travel to the United States for work or to attend scientific meetings.

The US State Department is now streamlining its procedures, aiming (eventually) to deal with routine requests within 2 weeks, an improvement on the current reported 4 months’ average delay for applicants from China, for example. The Editorial concludes: “We must continue to attract and retain the best and the brightest from all over the world if we are going to retain America’s global competitiveness, and reducing visa-processing delays is definitely a step in the right direction. If we don’t, America’s loss will be the rest of the world’s gain.”

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology journal home page.

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology guide to authors.

June highlights from Nature Biotechnology

Posted on 25 Jun 2009 by Maxine Clarke

Nature Biotechnology’s June issue contains several articles of particular interest to scientists as communicators, authors and entrepreneurs. Here are a few highlights:

Nature Biotechnology 27, 514 – 518 (2009).

Science communication reconsidered.

Tania Bubela et al.

As new media proliferate and the public’s trust and engagement in science are influenced by industry involvement in academic research, an interdisciplinary workshop provides some recommendations to enhance science communication. Among these are that graduate students need to be taught about the social and political context of science and how to communicate with the media and a diversity of publics; that the factors contributing to media hype and errors (largely of omission) are explicitly recognized to allow science institutions and media organizations informed communication policies; research on science communication should be expanded to include online and digital media; more investment in the systematic tracking of news and cultural indicators, including traditional news outlets but also radio, entertainment TV, religious media, the web and new documentary genres; and a new ‘science policy’ beat in journalism courses to fill in the gaps between the technical backgrounders preferred by science writers and the conflict emphasis of political reporters. Finally, the authors argue, if there is a major threat to science journalism, it is that science journalists are losing their jobs at for-profit news organizations; new models of support for science journalism are needed, in which online digital formats blend professional reporting with user-generated content and discussion.

Nature Biotechnology 27, 528-530 (2009):

Maters of their universe.

Genentech—the biotech venture that launched a thousand companies—is no longer its own master. In March, majority stakeholder Roche reached an agreement with the South San Francisco, California–based company under which the Swiss drug maker would take over the biotech for $46.8 billion. But many remember those first years when a small team of bright, intellectually disciplined young scientists—often rowdy and personally eccentric people—got the company up and running. Randy Osborne and Laura DeFrancesco caught up with a few of those pioneers to talk about that era, their time and how they felt leading the charge.

Nature Biotechnology 27, 531 – 537 (2009).

Wasting cash—the decline of the British biotech sector.

Graham Smith, Muhammad Safwan Akram, Keith Redpath & William Bains

Undercapitalization and overgenerous boardroom compensation for management have been major contributors to the poor performance of UK biotech. Despite historic leadership in European biotech, the UK’s industry has suffered a near collapse in the past two years and now has little private or public investment and no candidates for world-class companies. Why do shareholders allow UK public biotech companies to accumulate top management that pays itself so much, is unmotivated to drive shareholder value and as a consequence apparently drains the company of resources, notably cash? These questions, and others, are addressed in the feature.

Nature Biotechnology website.

Nature Biotechnology guide to authors.

Nature Biotechnology conference programme.

Nature Biotechnology focuses and supplements.

Thursday 25 June: Women in Science, Engineering and Technology – and the recession

Posted on 19 Jun 2009 by Maxine Clarke

The UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology is hosting an evening of speakers and discussion on Thursday 25 June at the Institute of Physics,London, 6pm – 8.30pm (approx). There are some spaces left – men and women are very welcome, but booking in advance is essential.

The discussion:

Women in Science, Engineering and Technology – and the recession

Is gender equality key to recovery?

What is the impact of the recession on women in science, entineering and technology professions? We’ll look at the role of these disciplines in economic recovery, whether gender equality become a luxury in a recession, and the place of women in the new employmnet landscape that emerges.

Speakers include Ruth Sunderland (chair), Business Editor at the Observer; Anne Pettifor, an expert commentator and campaigner on financial systems, author of the Green New Deal and the Debtonation blog; Professor Douglas Kell, Chief Executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, also a blogger; Mandy Clarke (Halcrow Ltd); Professor Ursula Martin (Queen Mary University of London); and Annette Williams (Director of the UK Resource Centre)

There will be refreshments and networking before and after. The meeting is upstairs at the Institute of Physics, but places are limited and prior booking is essential by email or by telephone (+44) 01274 436485.

About UKRC.

nature.com blogs

Category Archives: Conferences