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Promoting structural biology research in Africa

A group of researchers posing for a photo outside a conference centre

2 August 2022

Understanding the structural biology underpinning disease can be crucial for informing drug or vaccine design. For example, structural biology can help researchers understand the mechanism that allows a viral spike protein to bind receptors in our cells. However, structural biology research in Africa is suffering from a lack of resources and, consequently, from the loss of skilled researchers who are moving to pursue a career in this field overseas. To address this, BioStruct-Africa ran a workshop that brought the African structural biology community together by providing training and networking opportunities. BioStruct-Africa was awarded one of our Scientific Meeting Grants to support the event.

A return to in-person internships

Two people standing in front of a presentation screen

6 July 2022

Emily Simmons, our first intern able to work in the office since the start of the pandemic, recounts her experience.

Heading south for the winter with a Travelling Fellowship

A researcher sitting in a car. Her thermo imaging equipment is on the back seat behind her

25 May 2022

Beaks are an important asset for birds that live in environments with limited freshwater. This is because their bills are thought to offer a route for non-evaporative heat loss, helping the birds to regulate their body temperatures without losing water. Mackenzie Roeder, a PhD student from the University of Maine, used a Travelling Fellowship from Journal of Experimental Biology to support her quantification of this effect in the field.

Using Open Access papers as a teaching tool

6 May 2022

Two key aspects of scientific training are learning to think critically about the literature and developing a good writing style. Professor Guy Caldwell is a researcher at the University of Alabama who leverages articles from our Open Access journal Disease Models & Mechanisms for this purpose.

Record-breaking return for the BSCB-BSDB Joint Spring Meeting

An exhibition booth with The Company of Biologists logo

25 April 2022

We were delighted to attend the first in-person BSCB-BSDB Joint Spring Meeting since the start of the pandemic. In a triumphant return, the conference recorded its highest ever number of attendees, with around 500 delegates making the trip to the University of Warwick in the first week of April. There was also a bumper crop of posters, and the organisers reported that they had received a total of 290 submissions.

Meet our Directors: Holly Shiels

29 July 2022

Holly Shiels is based at the University of Manchester, UK, where her lab investigates the interplay between environment and cardiac physiology. They are currently working on the tolerance of fishes to hypoxia and to changes in temperature, as well as the effects of microplastics and crude oil on cardiac health. This latter research area also relates to broader concerns about air pollution, since crude oil contains polyaromatic hydrocarbons, which are the same molecules that form a ‘corona’ around particulate matter in the air we breathe.

Sustainable Conferencing Grants 2021 snapshot

21 June 2022

2021 Materials, Mimics and Microfluidics: Engineering Tools in Mechanobiology
Assistant Professor Andrew Holle submitted the first Sustainable Conferencing Grant application for 2021. The 3M2021 was a satellite-based hybrid meeting targeted towards Asian-Pacific researchers.

Spreading the word about our Sustainable Conferencing Initiative

24 May 2022

Improving the sustainability of research labs and scientific conferences is crucial given the threat of climate change, and the recent advent of remote meetings has helped bring this issue to the forefront. In response to this, we launched our Sustainable Conferencing Initiative in October 2020 to offer guidance and support on the sustainability of events. Viktoria Lamprinaki, our Sustainability Officer, recently attended two meetings to discuss this initiative and to meet with others working in the field of sustainability.

Our first in-person Workshop for 2022 and its sustainability touches

5 May 2022
After two years of no in-person events we had our first Workshop. Between 3 and 6 April the ‘Cell Size and Growth, From Single Cells to the Tree of Life’ Workshop took place in East Sussex, UK. Interesting presentations, in-depth discussions, tasty desserts, and fun conversations in the orangery, the Workshop had it all. You can read more about it in our recent story.

Workshop – Cell Size and Growth, From Single Cells to the Tree of Life

A large group of people posing for a photo on the steps of an old house

22 April 2022

The first of our 2022 Workshops took place in April, with a focus on cell size and growth. Organised by postdoctoral researchers Clotilde Cadart and Matthew Swaffer, this Workshop brought together researchers working with a broad range of systems, including yeast, tadpoles and even fossilised plants.

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