20 December 2023
It is known that some organised events can create up to 2400 metric tonnes of CO2/eq, which has a significant impact in accelerating global warming. Every step taken to decrease the carbon impact of the event industry counts in the fight against climate change, and this is something which The Company of Biologists feels strongly about.
This year, we reinforced our commitment to decrease the carbon footprint of our scientific Workshops, working hard to implement new sustainable strategies during the organisation and implementation of our events.
We are excited to share with you some of our achievements from 2023 in tackling the carbon footprint of multiple aspects of our Workshops: …
24 October 2023
The mitotic spindle is crucial for proper chromosome segregation during cell division. Chromosome segregation takes place in anaphase and previous work has shown that the speed of this process depends on the structure of the spindle. Yitong Xu is a graduate student in Stefano Di Talia’s lab at Duke University, where she studies mitosis and microtubule dynamics in Drosophila melanogaster embryos. Yitong recently used a Travelling Fellowship from Journal of Cell Science to visit Dr Thomas Mueller-Reichert’s lab at the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD) in Germany, to conduct cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) observations of the Drosophila spindle.
Updated 18 October 2023
The scholarly communication landscape has changed profoundly over the past two decades, with a profusion of new publishing and subscription models from commercial and not-for-profit publishers. The increasing importance of Open Access (OA) – making research immediately and freely available to all – has presented challenges as well as opportunities for libraries, funding organisations, publishers and researchers alike.
14 September 2023
Event catering can account for 7-17% of event carbon footprint 1 2 3 . Conferences and scientific workshops play a crucial role in the career development of researchers, helping them to spread awareness about their work and connect with like-minded peers 4. Equally crucial is environmentally friendly practices at these events. Organisers can make a difference with eco-friendly menus and encouraging conscious choices.
But what does it take to build a sustainable menu? This is a guideline on how to build a sustainable menu for your next scientific meeting. …
15 August 2023
The Company of Biologists supports early-career researchers (ECRs) in several ways across all five of our journals and three community sites. First Person interviews help primary authors to showcase their recently published articles, helping ECRs boost engagement and exposure of their work. A Year at the Forefront Reviews provide ECRs with an early opportunity to publish a review for free, helping them to boost their career prospects. Grants such as Travelling Fellowships enable ECRs to visit different labs around the world which specialise in many niche areas of scientific research.
28 November 2023
Accommodation and catering often has the second highest environmental impact of an event after transportation 1 2 3 and so choosing a sustainable venue for your event can make a big difference in your environmental impact. Venues are increasingly transparent about their sustainability measures and commitments, and information can be found on their website or by speaking with staff.
So what are the key factors to consider when looking for a sustainable venue?
24 October 2023
Travelling represents the largest carbon impact of an event. It can count for up to 56% of the whole event’s carbon footprint 1, and the impact is significantly higher when international participants use flights to reach the event.
With this in mind, we were delighted to award a Sustainable Conferencing Grant to Dr Serena Stanga who came with a solution that combined technology with alternative travelling, leading to a reduction in travel carbon footprint for her symposium “In pursuit of healthy brain aging: unveiling the biology of novel age-related mechanisms leading to dementia”, which was part of the 20th National Congress of the Italian Society for Neuroscience (SINS) 2. …
21 September 2023
To develop her own understanding of tissue regeneration, Grace Holmes, a master’s student from the Royal Veterinary College, used a Travelling Fellowship from Development to visit the Echeverri lab at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. There, she explored the role of Leucine Rich Repeat Kinase 2 (LRRK2), a protein associated with Parkinson’s disease in humans, in regeneration.
30 August 2023
To develop her own understanding of neural mapping, Federica Pizzulli, a PhD student from the Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms Department of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples, used a Travelling Fellowship from Journal of Experimental Biology to visit the Seuntjens lab at KU Leuven, Belgium. The lab was the first to adapt in-situ Hybridization Chain Reaction (HCR) to Octopus vulgaris.
10 August 2023
Darshan Mehta is a PhD student studying the mechanisms behind skin cancer at the Tata Memorial Centre Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, India. He took the opportunity to use a Conference Travel Grant from Disease Models & Mechanisms to travel to the 2023 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Stem Cells and Cancer – a meeting intended to explore cutting-edge research in the field of cell biology and cancer.
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