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ELSO 2007
With its sixth international congress in September, ELSO has shown the life science community definitively that it can deliver a regular meeting that matches the best of the big US meetings.
ELSO 2007 in Dresden (1-4 September) marked the tenth anniversary of the founding of ELSO. The success of this year's intense and exciting meeting demonstrates that ELSO has the formula right: a mix of top-notch international speakers, vibrant poster sessions, one of the biggest opportunities for exhibitors in Europe and a whole slew of interesting workshops, socials, career development events and debates that make the ELSO congress more than simply a scientific meeting.
Jeff Schatz' Keynote Lecture after the get-together on Saturday evening got the congress off to a challenging start by questioning what Europe should do for its young scientists … and what young scientists should do for themselves. The universities and funding systems came in for most criticism, accused of failing to nurture intellectual creativity, but young scientists too were warned that they have to be passionate, hard-working and willing to invest themselves in the 'civic duties' of science as well as in research itself. This means participating in the many aspects of scientific infrastructure that are crucial to creating a healthy environment for research, for the career development of young scientists, the growth of leaders of our institutions, etc.
There were 17 plenary lectures in the three main days of the meeting and a total of 180 speakers spread over four full days of subgroup meetings, plenary sessions and minisymposia. Around 1500 total participants, 600 posters and 60 commercial exhibitors' contributed to the event. Around X% of the participants were PhD students and Y% postdocs, making for a youthful and energetic atmosphere, and a great party that ran on late into the night.
There were prizes too for the three best posters and for the winner of the ELSO Early Career Award, which this year went to Thomas Lecuit of the IBDML (Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille Luminy) at the University of Marseille (see the article on page 3). The Early Career Award is just one of six different events organized this year by ELSO's Career Development Committee; the Career Mentoring Lunch, Careers Outside Academia, Funding Showcase and Meet-a-Mentor sessions were all great successes, as was the Open Floor Debate, which this year tackled the question of how to develop a coherent career structure for academics throughout Europe and what this structure might look like (see the article on page 4). Touching on several of the issues raise by Schatz in the opening session, this important issue for Europe's future really got people talking!
ELSO 2008
Next year ELSO will return to Nice on the French Riviera - always a popular venue. The dates are set for Saturday 30 August to Tuesday 2 September, so put it in your calendar now!
Poster Prizes
First prize for the best poster at the meeting went to Kay Eckelt and colleagues of the University of Barcelona who won a subscription to
Nature and free registration, accommodation and travel to ELSO 2008. Second and third prizes went, respectively, to Emmanuel Reynaud, Carolina Taengemo and colleagues from EMBL in Heidelberg and to Fátima Pereira and colleagues of the Gulbenkian Institute in Lisbon.
BioClips Prize
Stefan Weißhaar from Cologne found the three hidden movies in Christian Sardet's presentation
Cells in the media. Stefan wins free registration to ELSO 2008.
Bioclips: http://www.bioclips.com
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ELSO 2007