Conference Events
Highlights of the events organized by the ECR Committee at the 2024 SFRR-E Annual Meeting in Istanbul
The 2024 Annual meeting of the SFRR-E took place in Istanbul, 5–7 June 2024. We organized multiple exciting events dedicated to ECRs (and not only)!
The ECR networking event
On the first evening of the conference, we enjoyed our yearly ECR networking event. We started by forming teams based on our famous sticker system. After a brief introduction to break the ice, teams competed in a challenging puzzle game in which only the strongest made it through to the next rounds. In the end, one team was proclaimed the winner and took home the prize. It was hilarious watching you all debate the puzzle solutions and chase down our jury members to advance to the next round! We hope you had a great time and enjoyed making new connections.
Meet-the-Professors session
Right after the ECR networking event, we held the "Meet the Professors" session, open to everyone.
We welcomed professors and group leaders with diverse areas of expertise, including Daniela Caporossi, Niki Chondrogianni, Andreas Daiber, Mike Davies, Isabel Fabregat, Clare Hawkins, Malcolm Jackson, João Laranjinha, Giuseppe Valacchi, and David Heppner.
We began with a brief introduction from each of our guests, and then formed mixed teams, each including one of our special guests. Armed with pasta and marshmallows, every team faced the challenge of building the tallest tower possible. The team with the highest structure took home the prize!
It was great fun watching you team up and even lie on the ground in deep concentration, determined to build the perfect tower. Some of the engineering techniques on display were truly impressive!
Sunrise Round Table I: Pillow Talks: From Academia to Industry
The following morning, we kicked off with a sunrise round table, open to early risers and anyone who still had energy after the networking night.
Experts from academia (Antonio Cuadrado, Giuseppe Valacchi, Kasia Whysall) and industry (Mike Lu, Sven Terclavers, Carmen Veith) joined us to discuss diverse career paths. Thank you all for taking part!
The conversation was rich and wide-ranging. Attendees asked questions about what it is like to work in each sector, and it was genuinely insightful to hear the pros and cons of both. It is clear that career perspectives are a topic of great importance to ECRs, particularly for those approaching the end of their PhD or navigating their postdoctoral years. For this reason, we are planning to organise more events like this in the future!
Sunrise Round Table II: ROS Measurement: From Bedside to Bench
On Friday morning, we held a sunrise round table open to all, focused on how best to detect ROS. We were delighted by the turnout, as many ECRs and senior researchers joined us despite the early hour!
For this event, we were honoured to have leading experts in ROS measurements: Michael Davies, Clare Hawkins, Giovanni Mann, Jan Riemer, and Hadley Sikes. Our chairs, Veronica Lisi and Timoteo Marchini, organised a novel ”fishbowl“ format that greatly helped to keep the discussion dynamic and engaging.
It was gratifying to see that accurate ROS measurement resonated as such an important topic across all career stages, and the debates that emerged during the round table were truly stimulating.
ECR-Symposium – H2O2 on the Move: from Sub-cellular Redox Signals to Therapeutic Potential
After the sunrise round table, we held our first symposium within the SFRR-E Annual Meeting organised entirely by ECRs. The symposium was chaired by Cristina Mas-Bargues and Carmen Veith. David Heppner, Rut Espinosa, Carlos Henríquez-Olguín, and Carmen Veith presented and discussed NADPH oxidases in diverse biological contexts and disease settings, as well as subcellular H2O2 compartmentalisation.
It was wonderful to see such a strong turnout, with so many attendees engaged and interested in the work of our invited speakers. We firmly believe that it is truly inspirational for ECRs to see the science being done by their peers at similar stages of their careers.
We also got to acknowledge the young researchers that presented great science at the meeting. The SFRR-E awarded a total of 6 prizes to: Irene Canovas-Cervera (Spain), Javier Marques (Spain), Ufuk Ersoy (UK), Attila Altinpinar (UK), Lea Strohm (Germany), and Konstantinos Papanikolaou (Greece). Congratulations to all the awardees!
We had an incredible time together at the SFRR-E conference, and it was truly motivating to see so many of you enjoying our events and helping us build an ever-growing community of young redox researchers!
The ECR subcommittee says a big THANKS! to everybody who attended our events, see you next year in Galway!
