SoCoBio DTP held its Annual Conference in Southampton this week with over 50 attendees and our first meeting where the first two cohorts came together. 

A significant focus of the conference was our student’s research, and everyone had the opportunity to present their work as a poster or a talk. This research ranged across the BBSRC remit and included 2nd generation Biofuels, making strawberries more nutritious to support UK food security and the processes underlying cell division. The students voted for the poster prizes, which Jack Stubbs won in year one and year two was won jointly by Charlotte Bilsby and David Fisher. Joanna Haszczyn won the best talk for her work on the environmental toxicity of nerve agents. 

The program also included invited speakers suggested by the students, talks on wellbeing and careers and a conference dinner at Revolución de Cuba. Our invited speakers included scientific talks from neuroscientist Professor Kate Ellacott from the University of Exeter, who spoke about neuroscience, developmental biologist Professor Alison Woollard from the University of Oxford and reflections from Prof Guy Poppy on his role as Chief Scientific Advisor for the Food Standards Agency.

The next meeting of the cohort will be the Industrial Biotechnology summer school hosted by the University of Kent. 

Find out more about our students and their research by visiting our ‘meet our student‘ webpage.