Summary of the East Coast protein Meeting
The 2007 three day East Coast Protein Meeting was held at the Opal Cove Resort in
Coffs Harbour. The meeting is a joint initiative of the Queensland and Sydney Protein
Groups, special interest groups of the ASBMB, and is primarily aimed at providing
early career researchers from PhD to postdoc level with an opportunity to present
their work that may not always be possible at larger meetings. There were two
excellent plenary talks, to open proceedings Prof. Nick Dixon (University of
Wollongong) discussed the termination of DNA replication by Tus, and on Friday Dr.
Ashley Buckle (Monash University) presented work on the mechanism of GABA
production by the GAD65 and GAD67 enzymes. These were the appetisers in a
smorgasbord of talks by young researchers from all over Australia and even from
across the channel in NZ and from as far away as New York USA. All the talks were
of outstanding high quality and highlighted some of the excellent research being
carried out by the people who actually make our labs run. On Friday night we enjoyed
a lively poster session and trade display followed by dinner, drinks and dancing and
we were fortunately blessed with great weather for the whole meeting. The awards for
best student poster went to Molly Clifton (University Sydney) on the FOG-1/Sin3b
interaction in transcriptional regulation, for best student talk to Mugdha Bhati
(University of Sydney) who discussed the mechanism of complex formation between
different LIM-domain containing proteins and for best overall talk to Josh Mylne
(University of Queensland) who presented work on the function and structure of the
VRN1 protein involved in plant vernalisation.
Next time around the organising baton will be passed onto the Sydney Protein Group.
Feedback has so far been positive but we welcome any comments or suggestions to
make future meetings even more productive and enjoyable. We would like to thank
everyone who attended for helping to make the meeting a success, and would also like
to take this chance to thank the sponsors for their generous contributions, without
which none of it would have been possible. We look forward to seeing you again in
2009 for the next East Coast Protein Meeting!
Brett Collins, Jack Flanagan, Justine Hill, Thomas Huber, Bostjan Kobe and Lillian
Sando. Organising Committee, ECPM, 2007.
Awards for Best Poster Presentations (Sponsored by ASBMB, GE
Health and Bruker)
From top, Molly Clifton (University of Sydney), Matthew Breeze (University of
Queensland), Melinda Tan (University of Sydney)
Awards for best Student Presentation (Sponsored by QCIF, NuSep,
Stable Spectra Isotops)
From top, Mugdha Bhati (University of Sydney), Christophe Schmitz (University of
Queensland) and Janelle Hancock (Queensland Institute for Medical Research)
Awards for best non-student Presentation (Sponsored by Australian
Synchrotron, NZ Scientific and Queensland and Sydney Protein
Groups)
From top, Josh Mylne (University of Queensland), Charikleia Ioannou (University of
Wollongong) and Chu Kong Liew (University of Sydney)