Excitement, anticipation – and slight panic

It’s the week before the annual pilgrimage to the BES meeting, and as with most years, it is filled with excitement, anticipation, and slight panic! As a seminal meeting in Endocrinology, attending BES has always been a must to keep up to date with cutting-edge endocrine research.

This year, I’ve been lucky enough to be selected for an oral communication in the Young Endocrinologist’s prize session on Monday afternoon, and so I’m currently putting together slides for my talk, wondering how I will cram the essentials into 10 minutes (and failing miserably at the moment).

The PhD students are avidly preparing their posters and there is a general buzz of nervous energy around the lab- with questions about which session to attend, what questions will we be asked, and very importantly, what will this year’s conference dinner at Anfield, home of Liverpool FC, be like and will we meet any LFC players?!

The scientific program is packed full of interesting symposium; of particular interest to my research area of Reproductive Endocrinology and Cell Signalling, is the GnRH receptor symposium that kicks off the conference (pun intended) on Monday morning, and the poster sessions which I’m sure will be the hub of lively debate over the lunchtimes. The program is also full of many prestigious plenary lectures throughout the conference, which I’m sure will be a highlight to attend.  Now back to the small task of streamlining my talk...

Kim Jonas

Imperial College London