Cold Spring Harbor Meeting "Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Response"
Back in Germany and with a couple of days passed, the meeting can be called on of the best ones I attended so far. In short, the quality of the talks (and many posters) was high, the organization smooth and the location very inspiring anyway.
The abstracts books lists about 250 participants from all over the world, not surprisingly, US based scientists were in the majority. Talks were usually well attended with no parallel sessions. A strict time limit was enforced for the individual contributions (10 or 30 minutes) but there was no time set for the next speaker, allowing flexibility for questions. All nights, we concluded after 10pm, thereafter one could mingle with the participants at the one bar. The venue enhances the interaction - all activities focussed in a single lecture theater, the dining hall and the bar, all very close by each other, and speaking to anybody was easy this way.
And the science?
This was a meetings for experimental microbiologists with relatively little immunology (phew) and no bioinformatics, which was to be expected from the speakers list. It would not be fair to report details from a closed meeting, even if the CSH press policies does not list blogging in particular. Greg uttered some concerns on closed meetings; I do think that such meetings foster co-operations and mutual trust rather than providing only some cheap thrill of exclusivity. Several speakers provided insights into current work that I felt glad to see early and presented openly - not all work was in the process of submission.
The next CSH meeting on Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Response will be from September 15th to September 18th, 2007. However, there are many other meetings held at Cold Spring Harbor in other fields that might be more interesting to bioinformaticians. Venue and organization can definitely be recommended.
The abstracts books lists about 250 participants from all over the world, not surprisingly, US based scientists were in the majority. Talks were usually well attended with no parallel sessions. A strict time limit was enforced for the individual contributions (10 or 30 minutes) but there was no time set for the next speaker, allowing flexibility for questions. All nights, we concluded after 10pm, thereafter one could mingle with the participants at the one bar. The venue enhances the interaction - all activities focussed in a single lecture theater, the dining hall and the bar, all very close by each other, and speaking to anybody was easy this way.
And the science?
This was a meetings for experimental microbiologists with relatively little immunology (phew) and no bioinformatics, which was to be expected from the speakers list. It would not be fair to report details from a closed meeting, even if the CSH press policies does not list blogging in particular. Greg uttered some concerns on closed meetings; I do think that such meetings foster co-operations and mutual trust rather than providing only some cheap thrill of exclusivity. Several speakers provided insights into current work that I felt glad to see early and presented openly - not all work was in the process of submission.
The next CSH meeting on Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Response will be from September 15th to September 18th, 2007. However, there are many other meetings held at Cold Spring Harbor in other fields that might be more interesting to bioinformaticians. Venue and organization can definitely be recommended.
spitshine - 2005-09-22 08:08