About
Registration and Presentation Applications
Programme
Presentations
Viewing Posters & Using Slack
Abstracts
Image Competition
BBSRC Themes
About
The annual White Rose Mechanistic Biology DTP Symposium will be held virtually on the 15th December this year. This all-day event is designed to celebrate the work of our 3rd and 4th year students, so presentations will collectively span a diverse range of research topics.
Talks will be presented via Zoom (you will receive the link by email), and a Slack group will be available for viewing posters and as a platform to communicate with presenters about their work.
Remember to tweet throughout the event using #WRDTP20
See the video instructions from York student rep Alex Scott on how the symposium webinar will work this year:
Registration and Presentation Applications
Registration has now closed.
All presenters have now been selected.
Programme
Overall timings: the Symposium will start at 10:00 and end at 16:40.
Breakdown:
10:00-12:40 Morning sessions
12:40-14:00 Long lunch break
14:00-16:40 Afternoon sessions
Presentations
- Research presentations (4th Years) – These are 8 minute live talks focused on ongoing or completed research, followed by 2 minutes of questions.
- Flash presentations (4th Years) – 2 minute pre-recorded short talks focussed on ongoing or completed research with no following questions.
- PIPS presentations (4th Years) – These are 8 minute live presentations about a student’s completed professional placement, followed by 2 minutes of questions.
- Poster presentations (3rd & 4th Years) – A PDF poster focussed on completed or ongoing research, along with an optional short video talk describing the poster. A Slack channel will be available for others to get in touch and ask more about the research.
- Keynote Presentation – We will be hearing from Dr Steve Scott about how his career progressed from his PhD in Cardiovascular Biology to his current role as the Public Engagement Lead at UKRI. Steve will share his insights and learnings for how PGRs can grow their careers.
- Mental Health Talk – We will be hearing from Dr Sarah Masefield (University of York) to emphasise the importance of looking after your mental health and wellbeing while working in research (and beyond!), and some top tips on how to do so.
Viewing Posters & Using Slack
Things are going to work a little differently this year to accommodate the virtual format. Posters and networking will take place in the communications platform ‘Slack’. If you’ve registered for the symposium, you will be invited to join the Slack group a few days before the event, allowing you to get used to it in advance and giving you even more time to browse posters. We’ll send instructions along with our invitation to join the Slack group so you’ll know what to do.
See the video instructions from Leeds student rep Molly Patterson below for guidance on how to navigate Slack:
Abstracts
Abstract submission is now closed and the 4th year research talks have been selected.
250-word abstracts were marked on the following criteria:
1) Is the abstract accessible to a broader STEM audience?
2) Are the results interesting, novel and/or exciting?
3) Are the conclusions clear and concise? Do they reflect the aims?
4) Are the impacts and value of the findings clear?
Image competition
Earlier this year we asked DTP students and supervisors to submit images that represent their research. We chose our favourite images for use in our promotional material (hopefully you’ve spotted them!). Here are the winning entries (in no particular order):
Luke Fountain: A hydroponics system developed to allow the fine control of nutrient delivery to barley plants.
Joanna Greenman: Megakaryocytes (yellow) and macrophages (red) in the bone marrow of an S.mansoni infected mouse.
Alex Holmes: Membrane-integral pyrophosphatases.
Lorna Malone: Structure of spinach cytochrome b6f complex, solved by cryo-EM.
Roz Latham: Confocal microscopy of transgenic Arabidopsis protoplasts.
BBSRC Themes
The DTP’s research addresses four of the BBSRC’s core strategic themes. Posters will be sub-divided into these themes:
Advancing the frontiers of bioscience discovery
1) Understanding the rules of life (formerly World Class Underpinning Bioscience)
2) Transformative technologies (formerly Exploiting New Ways of Working)
Tackling strategic challenges
3) Bioscience for sustainable agriculture and food (formerly Agriculture and Food Security)
4) Bioscience for renewable resources and clean growth (formerly Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy)
The themes were updated by the BBSRC in 2019. For details, read Forward Look for UK Bioscience and see the Research Themes page (on this website).
More information coming soon: looking forward to seeing you soon!