Students visit BBC 2011 in Luxembourg

02 Feb 2012

For several years, NBIC has sponsored students to attend scientific conferences, like the NBIC Annual Conference or the Benelux Bioinformatics Conference (BBC). Celia van Gelder, project leader education at NBIC, explains why. "Participating in a scientific conference is a great way for students to get a broader view of the bioinformatics field. They get updated on the currently leading scientific questions and the latest developments, but they also get a chance to talk to PhD students and researchers working in different areas. We hope this helps them to get an impression of their future professional environment and to establish contacts that might be useful later on."

In December 2011, the annual Benelux Bioinformatics Conference (BBC) took place in Luxembourg. The three Universities of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands that offer a dedicated bioinformatics programme could each select two students to attend the BBC, fully sponsored by NBIC. Maarten Hamberg and Stefanie Geisen, bioinformatics students at the Hanzehogeschool Groningen, were part of the 'Dutch delegation'. Through e-mail, they shared their experiences.

Q: "Why did you want to attend the BBC?"
A: "We were very curious to learn what is going in the bioinformatics field beyond our training. Of course, we learned a little about it already, but it remains limited."

Q: "Why were you selected?"
A: "We needed to submit a letter on our motivation for the conference and come up with a plan to communicate our experiences with students and others that were not attending. We decided to create a simple website where people could post questions that we would answer during or after the conference. We also used this site to share our experiences and some pictures."

Q: "What did you expect from the conference?"
A: "We had high expectations, because it is a international event so we expected high-level presentations and speakers."

Q: "And were these expectations met?"
A: "Yes and no. The keynote speakers generally delivered very interesting lectures that really captivated us. But there were also quite a lot of presentations by researchers who are without a doubt very knowledgeable on their own specific topic, but for 'outsiders' these sessions were really difficult or simply incomprehensible. So from a number of sessions, we learned less than we hoped."

Q: "Did the topics match your training or was it all new?"
A: "As said, with some presentations it was hard to keep up. Lately, we focused a lot on assembly and genome annotation in our training, but unfortunately there was only little attention paid to this topic. We expected more on this."

Q: "Are there topics or contacts that you will follow up, for example for a research project or an internship?"
A: "We talked about studying in Luxembourg, because the city is really beautiful. We already arranged our internship before going to the BBC, but we did learn about some impressive new techniques and tools. For example, a tool that visualizes the different cellular phases in different types of cancer was really interesting."

Q: "Is it worthwhile for students to visit a conference like the BBC?"
A: "Yes, it is certainly useful to participate in such an event, but it probably especially useful for people engaged in actual research, because they can get new ideas by discussing their research with others working in the same area."

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